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The city council has signed a contract on behalf of all 10 Greater Manchester authorities plus Blackburn Council to make properties available to the 1,500 asylum seekers for the next five years.

It follows a year of negotiations between local authorities and the Home Office and the agreement guarantees the cost will not be borne by council tax payers.

It is intended that the scheme will bring back into use properties that have been standing empty for years in the same way empty flats in Blackley were brought into use to house Kosovan refugees last year.

Officials are now working to identify a range of public, private sector and housing association properties.

Complaints about the way asylum seekers have been dispersed around the country have come from residents in Moston where many refugees have been housed in private rented properties.

People have been angry that families have been arriving in the area with no community support networks and often no understanding of English which has put pressure on local schools and social services.

Councillor Marilyn Taylor, Manchester's health and social care spokesman and co-chair of the North West Asylum Seekers Consortium which brokered the deal, was pleased by the outcome.

She said: "The last eight months have been problematic because of the chaotic way asylum seekers were being disperses by the Home Office into private landlord accommodation.

"These people found themselves isolated with no support and in accommodation that often fails to meet basic standards.

"The new deal means we can show hos dispersal can work much more sensitively to the needs of local people and communities."