The Mancunion met with the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham at the Greater Manchester Green Summit on Monday, December 9.
During The Mancunion’s interview, the Mayor was questioned on the role of students in the city’s green future, the financial accessibility of student bus travel, and his comments on the Fallowfield Redevelopment project.
2024 Greater Manchester Green Summit
Held on December 9 in Salford, the Greater Manchester Green Summit is a yearly event hosted by Andy Burnham. Giving individuals the opportunity to attend workshops and panels, it is part of Manchester’s continued efforts to push for regional environmental change.
Asked what students could take away from the day’s event, he said: “We are quite clear that this is the future, and one thing Manchester has never done is to turn away from the future.
Because for us, if we get to a net zero city region by 2038, we will capture new industry in our city region, new jobs, and for anyone who studied here, that means opportunities to stay here in the green economy”.
Cost of student bus travel this year to rise under the Bee Network
The Mancunion put forward students’ concerns about the rising cost of attending university in Manchester to the Mayor.
Every bus service in Greater Manchester will be part of the Bee Network as of January 2025. This means that students will no longer be able to buy Stagecoach student bus passes to cover their travel.
Students previously had the option of buying annual Stagecoach UniRider bus passes, priced last year at £330. This year, students were prompted to buy an autumn term pass for £146, as student buses are set to be a part of the Bee Network from January, midway through the academic year.
From January, an adult single bus fare on all Greater Manchester buses will be £2. The Mancunion asked Burnham whether there would be any student concessions on buses after Christmas.
The Mayor said that all students in Greater Manchester will be able to buy an annual Bee Network bus pass, which means that unlimited bus travel anywhere in the city region will cost £15 a week.
An All Terms Bee Bus ticket price-matched at £330 was available for purchase at the start of the academic year, but did not cover student bus routes not yet a part of the Bee Network.
Bee Bus tickets will also be available for purchase for ‘Term 2’ and ‘Term 3’. These will be priced at £105 to cover January to March, and an additional £105 to cover April to June.
Those who buy these passes will pay £210 to cover second-semester bus travel. For students who bought a Stagecoach autumn term pass in their first semester, travel costs for the year will sum to £356.
This rise in the cost of bus travel for students follows consecutive rises in recent years, as Stagecoach’s offer of £330 for an annual pass last year was up £30 on the previous year.
The Mancunion asked the Mayor what could be done for students facing increased travel costs.
Burnham said: “That is a fair point, and what we are working on is a new particular concession for 18-21 year olds, recognising precisely the issue that you mentioned”.
The 18-21 bus pass will cost £40 a month and will apply to all young people within this bracket, not just students. This concession is set to be introduced in September 2025, so will not provide any support for the next half of the academic year. This will offer no concessions to students older than 21.
Burnham said: “Whether I can speed it up, I’ll obviously do my best to do that, but we’ve got a lot of change happening at the moment and it’s just about being able to manage it all properly. I’m sorry if that’s disappointing”.
On the Fallowfield Redevelopment, “We want fair renting for students”
The Mancunion followed up with Andy Burnham from his Question Time event in October. During the talk at the University of Manchester in October, he expressed his concern about the affordability of the Fallowfield Redevelopment.
With the additional knowledge of the estimated prices for the Fallowfield accommodation (estimated £235 a week), Burnham reiterated that he wants Universities to “work as hard as they can to make housing as affordable as possible to our students”.
Commenting on the state of student accommodation in Manchester, the Mayor was concerned that “Some of the private rented accommodation in Fallowfield and other places isn’t good enough. Landlords renting out that accommodation need to be challenged more”.
He acknowledges that “Because of the success of our universities, obviously there is pressure on accommodation and that’s had perhaps an inflationary impact on the cost of housing”.
Whilst the Mayor has little say in private companies or educational institutions’ rent prices, explaining “What I can’t do is tell universities how to run themselves”, he was keen to underscore “What I can commit to doing is making sure that purpose-built student accommodation comes under the Greater Manchester Good Landlord Charter.”
The newest Good Landlord Charter will have three dedicated sections, with one section focused entirely on “purpose-built student accommodation”. The charter would “have its own specific set of commitments to students” according the Andy Burnham.
The Mancunion also discussed with Burnham the University of Manchester’s plans to lobby for planning permission restrictions whilst being unable to fit the guidelines themselves.
When pushed on the specifics of the University of Manchester’s proposal, Burnham stated “There are past schemes that [you know] are probably hard to influence now, if contracts have been signed”.
Adding on to his comments about the charter, he said “However there are absolutely future schemes that can come under the charter and set principles as to how they should be governed going forward”.
On the rising renting costs for students in Manchester, Burnham stated:
“We don’t want to get a reputation of it being a place where only wealthier people can come and study in Manchester […] we don’t want to have that reputation”.
