The annual Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) looks at land that's considered suitable for residential development. It identifies land that we expect to deliver housing on, over the next 15 years or more.
We also produce a Five-Year Supply Statement. This is an assessment of how many homes we expect to be built in the next five years. It sets this figure against Government requirements.
Our 2026 SHLAA shows the sites in Manchester that we think could accommodate new housing. You can view the sites by:
- downloading the SHLAA 2026 full list of sites, or
- using the interactive SHLAA Map. The map tool shows how many homes each site might be able to accommodate and the timescales involved.
The sites are in three categories:
- Sites that were under construction on 31 March 2026,
- Sites that had planning permission on this date but construction hadn’t yet started,
- Sites that did not have planning permission on this date but do have the potential to be developed for housing. These are called 'capacity sites' (inclusion of a site in this category does not guarantee that it will receive planning permission.)
You can choose which layers to view by selecting them from the 'Layer List' icon at the top of the map, and search for specific streets, areas or postcodes by using the Search tool in the top left hand corner.
How the Council uses the SHLAA
We update the SHLAA on an annual basis.
We use the SHLAA to demonstrate whether we have a ‘five year housing land supply’. A five year housing land supply means that we can identify sites, which are expected to come forward within five years from the SHLAA base date, to meet Manchester’s local housing need for that period. In the case of the 2026 SHLAA, the data shows that there are sufficient deliverable sites to meet Manchester’s local housing need for the period April 2026 to March 2031.
The SHLAA forms part of the evidence base for Manchester’s Local Plan and also other frameworks and strategies. It will show the areas within the city that have the capacity to accommodate new housing. Infrastructure providers and policy documents will be able to plan for this. In addition, the SHLAA can be used by developers wanting to find suitable sites for development in Manchester.
The SHLAA data is submitted to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority each year.
Headline Statistics
- On 31 March 2026 there were 24,531 homes in the planning pipeline (i.e. these are developments which on this date had planning permission that had not expired). Almost two thirds of these homes were on sites that were already under construction at that point.
- In addition to the dwellings with planning permission, the SHLAA identifies the potential for a further 68,335 homes in Manchester. This makes 92,866 dwellings in total.
- We think that 90,191 of these homes will be built by 31 March 2039 – within the ‘plan period’ for Manchester’s emerging new Local Plan.
- We think that 30,805 homes will be built within the next five years.
- 91% of the homes likely to be built by 2039 are flats and 9% will be houses.
- Most of the homes likely to be built by 2039 will be in the city centre and city centre fringe area (62%).
Residential completions
The SHLAA does not report on residential completions, so completed sites are not shown on the map. But there were 5,019 dwellings completed in Manchester in 2025/26 across 109 sites. 587 of these were houses (12%) and 4,432 were flats (88%). 4,767 of the completed dwellings were on brownfield land (95%) and 252 were on greenfield land (5%).
There were 239 residential demolitions in 2025/26. This gives a net completions figure of 4,780 dwellings once the demolitions are taken off.