One Public Estate – driving collaboration through data and digital platforms
The One Public Estate (OPE) programme supports locally-led partnerships of public sector bodies to collaborate around their public service delivery strategies and estate needs. It helps repurpose underused or void public estate to make the most of existing assets.
Caroline Havler and Michael Boland of Sewell Advisory talked through their OPE work in the North of England, sharing insights into fostering collaboration among public sector partners to increase utilisation and drive efficiencies across their estates while delivering impactful placemaking solutions.
They outlined the many benefits of an OPE approach for all stakeholders. OPE projects create a smaller public estate footprint by rationalising assets, co-locating services and disposing of surplus properties, freeing up land for regeneration. They enhance service delivery and efficiencies by integrating public services, creating overall better outcomes for communities. They’re also greener, supporting sustainability and net zero goals through energy efficient buildings and sustainable estate planning.
It was emphasised that engagement was key to the projects, with buy-in needing to be at organisational level, with all stakeholders needing to commit to the strategic approach and project objectives.
Michael talked through the digital side of the project, with a single, comprehensive estates database created using the SHAPE platform, NHS England’s chosen mapping tool for strategic planning and insight. This enabled collaboration and visibility of estate across all stakeholders, and provided analysis tools which help to inform outcomes.
The outcomes of the project included a comprehensive digital estates database for strategic planning and supporting data-driven decisions, a categorisation of premises and understanding of forthcoming disposals, a group set up of stakeholders to share information and make decisions, a process for disposals, and an expanded project pipeline.
If you’d like to talk further on how you can replicate this in your own region, bringing together public sector partners to work together to make the most of the existing public sector estate, get in touch.
Head back to the Estates forum 2025 round up
We’ve summarised some of the topics we discussed on the day – if you have any questions, or want to continue the conversation, get in touch with any of our speakers direct, or drop us a line.
