Burnham pledges to end rough sleeping, despite past setbacks
Burnham is reviving a pledge he made in 2017, but Greater Manchester later saw rough sleeping rise again as financial pressure hit local services.
Andy Burnham has pledged to end rough sleeping again, a promise he made in 2017 as Greater Manchester mayor when he said ending it by 2020 was one of his top priorities. The record from his first run at the problem gives the pledge credibility and raises the same question: whether this time he has enough power and money to make it stick.
As mayor, Burnham’s administration said Greater Manchester recorded its first fall in rough sleeping in eight years. The combined authority later said rough sleeping was down 44% in two years when Burnham called on government to help fund A Bed Every Night, the region’s homelessness scheme. That progress did not last without strain. Later Greater Manchester Combined Authority material said the city-region was still under financial pressure, local services were stretched, and single-night rough sleeping had edged up again.
St Mungo’s welcomed Burnham taking office and said his pledge to make ending rough sleeping his first instruction was welcome. The charity’s endorsement reflected the scale of the issue he was taking on, but it also underlined how familiar the promise already was. Burnham had set a 2020 deadline in Greater Manchester and missed it.
The national picture has worsened rather than eased. The Centre for Social Justice said rough sleeping in England rose 20% in 2024 from the previous year and 91% since the COVID-19 pandemic. The government’s own autumn 2024 rough sleeping snapshot counted 4,667 people sleeping rough on a single night in England, up 20% year on year and 164% from 2010. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government continues to publish the snapshot alongside homelessness statistics, keeping the issue high on the policy agenda.
That makes Burnham’s new pledge more than a repeat of old language only if it comes with the practical tools Greater Manchester relied on before. A Bed Every Night showed how a local programme could bring numbers down when backed by coordination and funding, but the later rise in single-night rough sleeping showed how quickly those gains can erode when services come under pressure. Burnham’s past record in Greater Manchester is a reminder that rough sleeping can fall, but only briefly if the underlying housing and funding pressures are left unresolved.
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