Jubilant Andy Burnham puts action on homelessness at heart of “new era” for Greater Manchester

Andy Burnham vowed to “take control” for Greater Manchester and to tackle the scourge of homelessness after being elected metro mayor in a landslide victory.

The former health secretary, who served in the Blair and Brown governments as well as Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow team, pledged the “dawn of a new era” after becoming one of the most senior elected figures outside London.

Burnham ultimately eased to victory with 63 per cent of the vote for the huge combined authority area. He won in each of the 10 boroughs with Sean Anstee, the second-placed Tory candidate, winning fewer than one in four votes on a turnout of just under 29 per cent.

He skipped Corbyn’s victory rally in Manchester city centre last night to apparently head to a celebration in a local pub.

Now Burnham is tasked with delivering on a series of promises, one of the most of eye-catching of which to establish a mayor’s fund – backed by 15 per cent of his own metro mayor’s salary – to address rough sleeping.

“I won’t let you down… We will give power and purpose to the people and places left behind by Westminster,” he said.

“In this great city we will never accept as an inevitable fact of modern life that for some to succeed others have to sleep rough on our cold streets”, the BBC reported.

Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s campaign co-ordinator, faced questions about the role of Corbyn after an election in which the party slipped back immensely in council votes.

“It is the Labour Party candidates that are up for election in those constituencies,” he said.

“Jeremy is the leader of the Labour Party and he will be fronting this campaign and at the end of the day we need to make sure as many Labour MPs as possible are elected on June.”

GM Mayor vote share :
Lab 63%
Con 23%
Lib Dem 6%
Green 2%
English Dem 2%
UKIP 2%

— BBC North West (@BBCNWT) May 5, 2017