Andy Burnham promised to change Greater Manchester. Almost ten years on, how did he do?

Nine years in, Greater Manchester's Mayor Andy Burnham is getting graded on his tenure, per The Conversation. When elected, he diagnosed a core problem: Westminster's focus on London had left northern towns politically voiceless. He bet on devolution as the answer. On buses, he won decisively, surviving court battles with operators. The Bee Network launched in 2023 with two pound fares and free travel for ages sixteen to eighteen, and Greater Manchester saw England's largest passenger satisfaction jump that year. On rough sleeping, he pledged to end it by 2020 and missed. Numbers fell from two hundred sixty-eight in 2017 to eighty-nine in 2021, then climbed back to one hundred ninety-seven by autumn 2025, nearly erasing four years of progress. Housing barely budged; social lettings actually halved over his tenure. His defining COVID moment came in 2020 when he publicly refused government restrictions without adequate support, building his national profile. The assessment: transport and economic growth delivered, but housing and regional inequality remain unresolved. The real question now is whether his philosophy—place-based policy, not Westminster-driven—can translate to the national level.

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