Images of a council decision notice have been widely shared on social media with claims that they show a lease for the Manchester offices used by Number 10 North was agreed before Andy Burnham was elected to Parliament last month.
But this is not correct, according to both Manchester City Council and the Cabinet Office who say the decision notice has nothing to do with Number 10 North.
Manchester City Council told Full Fact the decision notice actually relates to a different part of the Heron House building where Number 10 North is, and is for office space which is being let to an arms-length public body not currently based there.
The council says Number 10 North is located elsewhere within Heron House, in offices which were already being leased by the government.
And while we don’t have an exact timeline, the Cabinet Office says preparatory work for Number 10 North took place during the Labour leadership contest, which happened after Andy Burnham was elected as an MP, as part of access talks.
What’s been claimed?
A decision notice published by Manchester City Council details the approval on 10 June of a proposal for a new lease of a vacant second floor office suite at Heron House with an unnamed occupant.
Theories about the notice have been circulating widely online in recent days, after it was confirmed last week that Number 10 North would be initially based in the building in Manchester’s Albert Square. Heron House also hosts the intelligence agency GCHQ and the Manchester Register Office, as well as a Slug and Lettuce bar and restaurant.
Posts on X and Facebook have shared images of the decision notice and claimed it shows Manchester City Council approving a lease for “the exact Heron House suite now used as Number 10 North” on 10 June.
Separately, Reform UK politicians have also raised questions about the document. On Tuesday the party’s chairman Lee Anderson MP wrote to Mr Burnham to ask whether the lease was “pre-agreed before you became Prime Minister”, and Reform’s Greater Manchester mayoral candidate Sian Astley posted an image of the decision notice on her social media and said questions about the lease would be put via a “formal request” to Manchester City Council. We’ve contacted Mr Anderson and Ms Astley for comment.
Lease is for ‘a different part of Heron House’
Mr Burnham was elected as the MP for Makerfield in a by-election held on 18 June, and announced his plans for Number 10 North—a Downing Street unit based in Manchester—on 29 June.
While we can’t say for certain when Mr Burnham and his team began discussing their ambitions for a Number 10 North to be established, or what conversations were had ahead of the announcement, there’s no evidence that the document being shared online has anything to do with these plans.
We contacted both Manchester City Council and the Cabinet Office about the posts.
Manchester City Council told us that the decision notice related to a part of the Heron House building that has been let to “various organisations in recent years”.
A spokesperson added: “We can confirm that this lease deal has been in motion for some time and was concluded in June—it is a lease in a different part of Heron House and it is not linked to No 10 in the North or GCHQ.
“The online speculation about pre-planning [a] No 10 move to Heron House is incorrect—and why this lease agreement is dated before the Makerfield by-election.”
While the leaseholder the decision notice relates to has not been publicly named, the council told Full Fact that it is an arms-length public body which is not currently based in Heron House, and which is not related to Number 10.
And the council also told us that because Number 10 North has been established within existing office space which was already being leased by the government, there was no change of use in planning terms and so no requirement for the government to inform the council about how it uses the space.
The Cabinet Office also said that the decision notice was unrelated to Number 10 North and was for different office space elsewhere in the building.
It said Number 10 North was established using existing UK Government offices in Heron House, and said any suggestion that office space was leased for Number 10 North ahead of the Makerfield by-election was incorrect.
It also said that preparatory work for Number 10 North took place during the Labour leadership contest (in which Mr Burnham was elected unopposed) as part of access talk arrangements.
