Dear Andy

Congratulations on your new role as mayor of Greater Manchester. Exciting times lay ahead as you focus your energy on finding solutions for rough sleepers, dealing with the wider homelessness issues, providing an affordable home to everyone in Manchester who wants one and ensuring  our health and social care needs can be met through an integrated system.

With a focus on the delivery of the Northern Powerhouse strategy, it is my hope that you will make Manchester a great place to live, work, grow up and grow old. I hope you will create more equality of opportunity across the combined authority and find ways to deal with some of the long term health issues around an ageing population, mental health and pollution for example.

I like and share the commitments you made. Its not going to be an easy road to navigate but having the opportunity to work collaboratively, within new structures and outside of the constraints of Westminster can only be a good thing when trying to drive change. There has never been a better time to bring great thinkers and doers together to deliver what is needed for the people of Manchester. I’m in, lets do it.