Mayor hopefuls discuss issues in live debate

Six candidates standing to be the next Greater Manchester mayor have taken part in a live BBC debate.

Reform UK's Sian Astley, the Green Party's Geraldine Coggins, Labour's Bev Craig, Conservative Phil Eckersley, independent candidate Marcus Farmer and Liberal Democrat Richard Kilpatrick discussed a range of topics.

Below are some of the points raised by each candidate during the debate and the complete debate is available above or on BBC Sounds.

The candidates' key points are placed in alphabetical order by their surnames and a full list of those running in the election can be found here.

Reform UK's Sian Astley said there must be transparency in how the police deal with grooming gangs.

"There are subjects which need resolving," she said.

"I want to go in and I will open up the books and I will ensure that there is full compliance with any review or investigation going forward.

"This is an issue which comes up on our doorsteps over and over and over again."

Hear BBC Radio Manchester's interview with Sian Astley on BBC Sounds.

The Greens' Geraldine Coggins was asked about her pledge to create a new publicly-owned provider to build 20,000 affordable homes within 10 years.

"I think of some of the children I know in my wards in Altrincham, where I'm a councillor... they haven't got a safe, secure place to call home," she said.

"My plans for homes for Greater Manchester are that we want to create 20,000 new, genuinely affordable homes."

She said 10,000 would be built and the "other 10,000, we're going to buy, fix up and retro-fit and we're going to rent them all out at genuinely affordable rents".

Hear BBC Radio Manchester's interview with Geraldine Coggins on BBC Sounds.

Labour's Bev Craig said people needed to feel safer and there needed to be a focus on "the issues on the ground".

"I think we've started to see violent crime come down, haven't we? But people still don't feel safe," she said.

"We need to talk more about anti-social behaviour - a new neighbourhood guarantee that binds in Greater Manchester Police with councils and housing providers... that takes the blight away from our community.

"I want us to spend some time... actually talking about the issues that matter to people on the ground."

Hear BBC Radio Manchester's interview with Bev Craig on BBC Sounds.

Phil Eckersley, the Conservative candidate, said one of his "key pledges" was "to protect the green belt and our green spaces".

The Trafford councillor said he was "on the planning committee in Trafford... and for far too long, I've seen our green spaces eaten away at".

"We need to look at our green spaces as amenities, not just prime development land," he said.

"We've had massive issues across Greater Manchester with the focus being on funding and giving cheap, subsidised loans to developers to build luxury flats and skyscrapers at the expense of building affordable housing."

Hear BBC Radio Manchester's interview with Phil Eckersley on BBC Sounds.

Independent candidate Marcus Farmer said Greater Manchester's public sector housing chiefs have been "outclassed" by private companies.

"It's evident the housing policy for Manchester is poor at best," he said.

"The whole city, certainly the skyscrapers in the city centre, the whole combined authority and Manchester City Council, have been outclassed by business people.

"There's no affordable housing. There's a couple of towers. I don't think anybody even lives in them. They've been bought by foreign pension funds or whatever."

Hear BBC Radio Manchester's interview with Marcus Farmer on BBC Sounds.

Liberal Democrat candidate Richard Kilpatrick said restoring trust in politics and improving neighbourhood policing were priorities.

"The people's trust in politics and politicians is at an all-time low, because whether it is something that is serious [as grooming], or whether it is basically trying to navigate services, it's almost impossible for them to do that," he said.

"It's really important.

"I think we need to focus on neighbourhood policing, because I think trust is a really important part of that."

Hear BBC Radio Manchester's interview with Richard Kilpatrick on BBC Sounds.

• As it happened: Greater Manchester mayoral election debate

Restore Britain declined to take part in the debate. Hear BBC Radio Manchester's interview with the party's candidate Marcus West on BBC Sounds.

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