Greater Manchester Mayoral candidate plans to end rough sleeping in a year – or he will resign.

A Greater Manchester mayoral candidate has pledged to eradicate rough sleeping in the region within a year if elected – or he will resign.

Reform UK candidate Nick Buckley insists he is best-placed to solve the homelessness crisis having spent 15 years helping people off the streets and into accommodation.

His work began as a community safety manager in Manchester city centre for the council where he focused on issues such as antisocial behaviour and begging.

In 2012, Mr Buckley took voluntary redundancy and set up the charity Mancunian Way, which focuses on homeless outreach as well as steering teenagers away from a life of crime.

Its success led to Mr Buckley receiving an MBE in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List in recognition of his dedication to voluntary services and the local community.

Asked about his commitment to step down as mayor if he falls short of his rough sleeping pledge, he says: “I’m not offering resignation because it’s a tough nut to crack.

“I’m making that pledge to make sure myself, my team, the office of mayor and all partners in Greater Manchester fully understand that from day one that is one of my main priorities.

“A year is doable. If as a society we can create vaccines from scratch, that shows we have the will and the want to solve huge problems. 

“With rough sleeping we can’t wait any longer, it’s a national shame on all of us that we allow it to continue.”

Mr Buckley accepts that the number of people sleeping rough has fallen under the incumbent mayor Andy Burnham’s ‘A Bed Every Night’ scheme.

But the charity worker feels that the ongoing outreach programmes are not offering the right support for some people who are stuck in a cycle of drug addiction and begging.

“I’ve spoken to hundreds of rough sleepers over 15 years and not one of them wants to live on the streets,” says Mr Buckley.

“What they don’t want is the support being offered to them, that’s because support is what we want to give them, not the support they’re willing to accept.

“We also need to crackdown on the begging trade as it’s one of the main reasons why rough sleepers don’t accept help.

“People don’t know that 10 years ago you could not sit down in Manchester city centre because you’d get moved on within minutes, and that’s the approach I want to come back to.”

                                                    Back to Basics on policing

Mr Buckley has also taken a strong view on policing and wants Greater Manchester Police to return to a ‘back to basics’ approach focused on stopping crime and catching criminals.

He would ensure that the force would move away from ‘policing the internet’ and stop recording non-criminal hate incidents, which are seen by the victim – or any other person – to be motivated wholly or partially by hostility or prejudice.

“It’s basically thought police,” adds Mr Buckley.

He would also hold a yearly ballot in every ward in Greater Manchester to see if communities want police officers to carry out more stop and search in their area in a bid to crack down on knife crime.

Last year it was revealed that officers from GMP were eight times more likely to stop and search black people than white people.

Mr Buckley claimed the disparity shown in the Home Office figures was not purely down to race, adding: “There are many factors such as education, the drug trade and urban culture.

“One of the biggest victim groups is young black men themselves, that’s why we’re giving the vote to the people. It’s their communities, their streets.”

Mr Buckley is one of several mayoral candidates to have come out against the proposed Greater Manchester Clean Air Zone, where heavily polluting commercial vehicles such as buses, lorries, vans and taxis, would pay a daily charge to use the region’s roads.

The daily charge has been labelled a ‘congestion charge’ by opponents like Mr Buckley, although government minister Rebecca Pow insisted in Parliament that it was not, and that the Clean Air Zone would not cover private cars and vehicles.

Despite this, Mr Buckley says: “If it looks like a congestion charge, smells like a congestion charge, then I’m going to call it a congestion charge.

“We’re going to be punishing businesses after a year of Covid, with some on the verge of bankruptcy, and spend hundreds of millions on this Clean Air Zone.

“Cars are not bad, pollution is bad. Let’s fix the problem, the exact problem, not use a sledgehammer.

“Clean Air is a concern nationally, so lets have a national approach, such as changing the MOT regulations to remove dirty vehicles over time. 

“Why is it okay for Greater Manchester not to have dirty engines, but these same vehicles can drive in Cheshire?”

Among Mr Buckley’s other pledges is a plan to open ‘technical schools’, focused more on teaching more vocational skills, as well as setting up a hotline for people with complaints about how public money is being spent.

Mr Buckley says he wants to appeal to the ‘silent majority’ who vote, but feel ‘disenfranchised’ with mainstream political parties.

But he feels that controversial comments he made about the Black Lives Matters movement last year have not alienated potential supporters in more diverse communities.

In June 2020 trustees at Mancunian Way sacked Mr Buckley after hundreds signed a petition calling for his removal.

A counter-petition calling for his reinstatement attracted over 17,000 supporters, and weeks later Mr Buckley was reinstated but only after the entire board resigned.

“I stand by what I said completely, I have no regrets,” he said.

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