Our award-winning One Public Estate programme – delivered in partnership with the Office of Government Property (OGP) within the Cabinet Office – supports locally-led partnerships of public sector bodies to collaborate on their public service delivery strategies and estate needs. We help partners to repurpose surplus public estate for housing, regeneration, and other locally determined uses.
About One Public Estate
One Public Estate began its work in 2013 in 12 local areas, but today we are working with more than 300 councils on projects transforming local communities and public services right across the country.
How we work
OPE is an established national programme delivered in partnership by the Office of Government Property (OGP) within the Cabinet Office and the Local Government Association (LGA). It provides practical and technical support and funding to councils to deliver ambitious property-focused programmes in collaboration with central government and other public sector partners.
OPE partnerships across the country have shown the value of working together across the public sector and taking a strategic approach to asset management. At its heart, the programme is about getting more from our collective assets – whether that’s catalysing major service transformation such as health and social care integration and benefits reform; unlocking land for new homes and commercial space; or creating new opportunities to save on running costs or generate income. This is encompassed in three core objectives:
- creating economic growth (new homes and jobs)
- delivering more integrated, customer-focused services
- generating efficiencies, through capital receipts and reduced running costs.
By 2019/20 the programme is now set to generate 44,000 jobs, releasing land for 25,000 homes, raising £615 million in capital receipts from sales, and cutting running costs by £158 million.
In 2017 OPE expanded its partnership to include the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) new Land Release Fund (LRF), a fund which supports councils to delivery of new homes on their land. Together, OPE and LRF will create a wider support package to unlock more surplus public land and property to support housing delivery.
What we do
The core work of the One Public Estate programme involves:
- asset mapping
- generating ideas and shaping a shared vision for public sector assets
- bringing public sector partners together
- establishing an appropriate partnership with senior buy-in
- seed funding and ongoing professional support
- establishing a vision and programme of work for your partnership.
Together with the Office of Government Property, we also offer support to partnerships on:
- funding
- accessing central government
- best practice and case studies
- training and workshops to develop your council's programmes of work
- changing policy
- local delivery
- technical aspects of benchmarking and working with data.
Contact us
To get in touch with us please contact your regional OPE programme manager, or email us at onepublicestate@local.gov.uk
For any Freedom of Information requests regarding the One Public Estate programme, please email Cabinet Office at foi-team@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Contact One Public Estate
Access our map highlighting our full list of One Public Estate (OPE) contacts in each local authority area – hover over your area to reveal the relevant contact information.
One Public Estate: Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF2) Round 2 – January 2023
Up to £180 million Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF2) capital grant funding is available to all constituent English councils over a three-year period to support the release of council-owned brownfield land for housing. Round Two funding is open to applications.