In March 2007 contracts were signed between Manchester City Council and the Renaissance Consortium for the delivery of the Miles Platting PFI (Private Finance Initiative) scheme.  The scheme involves the investment into Miles Platting of £160m of public money along with a similar amount of private sector funding.

The PFI scheme was set up to:

• remodel the 107 hectare (264 acre) estate
• improve the 1,500 council properties in Miles Platting
• build 1,000 new houses for sale and rent in the area
• provide a high standard of housing management services for the 30-year life of the contract.

The Renaissance Consortium is a company specially set up to deliver the Miles Platting PFI project. It consists of Adactus, an established housing association with experience of managing not-for-profit rented housing, Lovell, a national social housing contractor and developer and IIC, a specialist organisation with experience of investment in private/public improvement schemes.

Adactus will manage and maintain the area's council housing until 2037. This includes collection of rent, dealing with repairs, carrying out planned maintenance and dealing with anti-social behaviour. However, the list does not stop there and as they have a vested interest in the area they will provide a range of services for residents.

Almost 1,500 existing council properties have already been refurbished under the PFI plan and the regeneration of the area will eventually include approximately 1,000 brand new homes some of which have already been built by Lovell. The regeneration plan includes contemporary, cutting-edge house-types as well as more traditional homes.

Manchester City Council keeps overall ownership of the housing and continues to set the rent as landlord. Tenants stay as council tenants and their legal rights are therefore the same as those granted to other Manchester City Council tenants.

A private finance initiative, or PFI, is a way of bringing investment into council estates as on their own they can't raise the cash needed to improve all council homes to the highest standards. A PFI is a partnership between a private building company, a not-for-profit 'housing management company' and a building society or bank.

The building company (Lovell) have completed the improvement work, refurbishing existing homes and re-designing the area. They have also started building new homes to rent and buy.

IIC brings borrowing power, new skills and financial expertise and the housing association (Adactus HA) takes over responsibility for managing the estate: collecting rent, arranging repairs, finding new tenants, etc. as well as working with residents to improve the quality of life.

The money that is being borrowed to pay for the cost of the improvements and the huge upgrade to the whole neighbourhood will be gradually repaid by Manchester City Council over the next 30 years using the money awarded by the government.

Residents can expect the highest standards of service from the partners. The council, with the involvement of local residents, will set the standards of performance that the consortium must reach and, through a tenant led monitoring panel ensures that they hit them. Failure to do so incurs financial penalties.

Once the decision was reached that a PFI was the most viable and the most effective means of bringing investment into Miles Platting, several partnerships submitted bids for taking on the PFI which included different neighbourhood designs for the area.

Residents were involved fully through consultations to assess which neighbourhood plan and which partnership was the most effective for delivering physical regeneration and social revitalisation into Miles Platting.

The partnership finally selected to manage the estate and deliver the changes was the Renaissance Consortium. Contracts were signed for them to manage the estate for the next thirty years on 22nd March 2007 and Renaissance opened their doors to the public on Monday 26th March at the local Housing Office in Miles Platting marking the start of a massive five-year, £300 million programme.

The Miles Platting Neighbourhood PFI includes all of Miles Platting, and parts of Ancoats and Collyhurst. It is situated half a mile east of the city centre, and runs from Great Ancoats Street to Hulme Hall Lane, south of Oldham Road and north of Bradford Road.

It is predominantly council housing, mostly built in the 1960s and 1970s, and the majority of homes in the area needed major spending to bring them up to the decent homes standard.

The neighbourhood is ranked as one of the most deprived areas in the country according to the index of multiple deprivation and has historically suffered from problems including crime and vandalism, low education attainment standards and low unemployment.

The massive investment in this area aims to address these issues as well as bringing homes up to standard to create a desirable place to live.  Click on the map to view a larger version.

The office address is:

Miles Platting Neighbourhood Office, Baker House, 542 Oldham Road, Miles Platting, Manchester M40 8BS

Drop-in Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm (6pm on Wednesday) 

phone 0800 234 6826 (textphone for hard of hearing users, 18001 0800 234 6826)
email: milesplatting@adactushousing.co.uk