One Public Estate Programme Annual Report

The government launched one Public Estate in 2013. 

One Public Estate is an established national programme working with more than 300 councils and is delivered in partnership with the:

• Local Government Association
• Office of Government Property within the Cabinet Office. 

To date it has supported over 800 projects, spanning 98 per cent of English councils, 12 government departments and hundreds of public sector stakeholders, helping transform local communities and public services right across the country. 

One Public Estate aims to get more from the collective public sector estate including:

• unlocking surplus sites for new housing and jobs
• enabling more joined-up public services for local communities
• creating further opportunities for local authorities and public sector partners to reduce running costs
• generate income to deliver savings for the taxpayer

In 2017, the national programme expanded its partnership to include the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities’ (then the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government) new Land Release Fund. The Land Release Fund aims to accelerate the release of local authority-owned land for housing to help increase the public sector contribution to land supply innovation in house-building.

Three core objectives of One Public Estate

1. Economic growth – through the creation of new homes and jobs
2. Delivering more integrated, customer focused services – with property as an enabler
3. Generating efficiencies – through capital receipts and reduced running costs

Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF)

The delivery of new homes across England is a national priority for central government. Local government is equally committed to supporting housing development. Local authorities have established more than 150 housing development companies, demonstrating that local government is taking an increasingly hands-on role in developing their local area.

Since 2017, OPE has partnered with MHCLG/DLUHC to deliver the Land Release Fund (LRF). The LRF has accelerated the release of local authority-owned land for housing to help increase the public sector contribution to land supply and innovation in housebuilding. The LRF currently supports 69 local authority projects which are on track to release land for more than 6,000 homes. Successful projects from a second application round are due to be announced shortly. The LRF is a unique programme. It targets small sites where viability issues have prevented the release of local authority-owned land for housing delivery. Previous rounds have shown LRF-funded projects can deliver at pace by bridging viability gaps to accelerate the release of land for housing.

The BLRF will support the release of local authority owned brownfield land for housing, and in addition, the fund will also seek to support self and custom-build projects on both brownfield and greenfield sites.

The local programme was established in November 2016, under the leadership of the Greater Brighton Economic Board.

It brings together representatives from the participating local authorities, health commissioner and provider trusts, emergency services and education to work on property-focused initiatives through sharing and collaboration including with central government.

The local programme recognises the importance of public sector bodies, as major landowners and as anchor institutions, in making the best use of the city region’s limited land supply to help build the economic, social, and environmental resilience of the region.

In 2020 the Greater Brighton Economic Board agreed 10 ambitious Environmental Pledges to tackle climate change and move the City Region towards net zero. Were appropriate, the local programme will look to support the realisation of these pledges by considering the sustainability and resilience implications associated with maximising the potential of the One Public Estate.

The local programme aims to facilitate closer cooperation and coordination between member organisations and key stakeholders. This is supported by two partnership boards

Greater Brighton Public Sector Property Group

Established in October 2016, the Group comprises representatives from the region’s participating local authorities:

• the health sector
• emergency services and education
• the national and West and East Sussex County Council One Public Estate programmes

The Group meets quarterly and is responsible for providing oversight of and support to the programme’s projects, as well as for identifying new One Public Estate opportunities. It also provides a forum to engage public sector landowners in the delivery of key initiatives and themes relating to asset management and use and the built environment.

Greater Brighton Housing and Growth Sites Working Group

Formed in November 2019, the Group brings together all Greater Brighton local authorities and Homes England to focus specifically on housing and regeneration, covering supply and delivery, funding and investment, policy and standards, and programmes and initiatives. The Group meets quarterly to share learning and best practice, provide peer support and review, and identify and progress opportunities for collaboration and joint work.

Locally led partnerships of public sector bodies can bid for funding from the national programme to repurpose underutilised or surplus public estate for housing, regeneration, and other locally determined uses.

In 2023 to 2024, the local programme was awarded £794,885 in additional funding to support a Land Release Fund project Knoll House, Brighton; Prince Charles Close, Southwick (this award was subsequently declined); South Street, Lancing. 

The total funding awarded to the local programme now stands at £7.1M, supporting a portfolio 37 funded projects. 

This comprises £1,347,500 in One Public Estate revenue funding to support the development of 12 projects that are being led by various public sector bodies. The funding is being used for a range of activities, including feasibility, viability, master planning, business case development and project management support, to provide the evidence base needed to make robust asset management decisions. 

It is currently expected that these projects will facilitate the delivery of circa 1,000 new homes, £46min capital receipts, £7.5m in reduced running costs, 5,035 new jobs (including construction), and 29,000sqm of employment floorspace (excluding uses previously defined as D1). 

One Public Estate projects are by nature embryonic and the local programme’s projects are at varying stages of development. These forecast outputs will likely change as business cases are completed and as schemes are developed and approved. 

£5.76M in Land Release Fund capital funding to enable to delivery of 24 projects (one of which has also received One Public Estate funding) creating circa 500 new homes on local authority-owned land. The funding is being used for small-scale land remediation and infrastructure works. It is enabling the viability of these projects by filling the funding gaps caused by abnormal development costs and scheme specific complexities. 

The Land Release Fund projects form part of the following.

Adur & Worthing Council’s developing pathways to affordable homes

A four-year programme that will deliver at least 250 affordable homes by 2025. To date, Adur District Council has secured £973,000 in Land Release Fund funding to support 7 projects to provide 76 new homes on council-owned land – 100 % of which will be affordable. The projects are being delivered as part of the councils’ Affordable Homes Delivery programme.

Brighton & Hove City Council’s new homes for neighbourhood's programme 

Building much needed new rented council homes on council-owned land. New Homes for Neighbourhoods forms part of the council’s package of actions to provide more housing in the city. Since 2015 New Homes for Neighbourhoods has delivered 269 homes across 14 projects, and it has a further pipeline of sites set to provide c.500 homes. Brighton & Hove City Council has secured £4,114,387 in Land Release Fund funding to date, to support the delivery of 11 projects providing 417 new homes – two of which have already been successfully completed.

A pipeline of small sites owned by Brighton & Hove City Council being redeveloped by Bunker Housing Cooperative

A self-build housing co-operative for low-income families and individuals in the city, for affordable housing in perpetuity. The council will dispose of the sites by long lease to Bunker Housing Cooperative, subject to their securing funding and obtaining planning consent for each scheme The homes will be available to households meeting the council’s allocations criteria and/or on Homemove, the council’s housing register, via membership of the cooperative and the rents will be well below the city’s market rate. 

To date, Bunker Housing Cooperative in partnership with Brighton & Hove City Council has secured £139,875.37 in Land Release Fund funding to support 4 projects that will deliver 13 new homes. Two of these sites are no longer coming forward following planning applications and local area consultations and in 2023 another one of the sites is not coming forward due to ongoing viability issues. Dunster Garage site is however progressing.

The local programme is required to submit triannual reports to the national programme, showing the progress of each of the 36 funded projects against their project plans and highlighting any issues and risks. As the programme matures, we have successfully completed 4 of the housing projects and we have begun a comprehensive review of all of the funded projects to assess their ongoing viability and efficiency. This will be reported in the next annual report.

One Public Estate Projects

1. Worthing Integrated Care Centre, Worthing
2. Preston Circus Fire Station, Brighton
3. Preston Barracks Primary Care Centre, Brighton
4. Moulsecoomb Housing & Community Hub, Brighton
5. Brighton General Hospital, Brighton
6. Springman House, Lewes
7. Hove Station Quarter, Hove
8. Patcham Court Farm, Brighton
9. North Street Quarter, Lewes
10. Burgess Hill Station Quarter, Burgess Hill
11. Morley Street/Ivory Place, Brighton
12. Future of Public Sector Office (strategic)

• NSQ – aka Phoenix 
• Project Title: North Street Quarter & Springman House 
• Delivery Body: Lewes & Eastbourne Council 
• Funding Award: £240,000 – OPE 4 and 6

This project has evolved from its initial conception into one of the most prominent regional development opportunities. One year after proposals were announced for the transformation of a 7.9-hectare brownfield site the ambitious development at North Street Quarter in Lewes was granted planning permission in February 2024 (subject to approval of final highways matters).

The project is led by Human Nature, a Lewes based company, in partnership with the council and one of the core fundamentals of the design is to prioritise people over cars. The Phoenix will be a walkable, multi-use development on a former industrial site in Lewes, within the South Downs National Park. The mixed-income, multi-tenure development will provide 685 homes (with 30% affordable – made up of 154 homes at local housing allowance levels and the remainder as First Homes), creating a place to start out in life and a place to stay. When complete, it will be the UK’s largest timber-structure neighbourhood, and a blueprint for sustainable placemaking and social impact that can be deployed at scale.

Human Nature is working with some of the UK’s leading architects, landscape designers and engineers plus local businesses and foundations to create breakthrough models in sustainable placemaking, prioritising social value and impact. The Phoenix was master-planned by Human Nature’s in-house design team, regenerative design agency Periscope, and Kathryn Firth, director of master-planning and urban design at Arup.

An emphasis on building connections and enabling interaction in shared spaces and facilities runs through the design of the Phoenix. In addition to 685 highly energy-efficient homes powered by renewable energy, the new neighbourhood includes public squares and gardens, dedicated community buildings (including a low-cost canteen) and a site-long river walk. 

A co-mobility hub will incorporate electric-car share, car hire and car club, electric bike service and a shuttle-bus facility – enabling a shift away from reliance on private vehicle ownership and creating safe streets for walking, cycling and wheeling.

In Parcel 1, the first homes designed in detail (by Ash Sakula Architects) are interwoven with play areas, communal garden plots and a shared cycle store intended to facilitate interaction and promote a culture of shared living. Designed in collaboration with Periscope, a central courtyard gives residents a place to sit, pause, talk and play and incorporates a rain garden providing protection against flooding – features which will be found across the Phoenix.

In the wider plan, climate-progressive innovations include a data-driven renewable energy system set to enable10–20% reductions in residents’ energy bills (part of Human Nature’s goal of ‘radical affordability’), on-site recycling, waste-management and composting facilities, and an urban-farming and community-gardening strategy.

The existing industrial site 

Collaboration, connection and community 

The Phoenix team have worked closely with thousands of local residents, three dedicated community working groups and more than 60 businesses and stakeholder organisations to evolve the project in response to community needs. 

Since the initial planning application was submitted in early 2023, there have been three rounds of consultation, resulting in a number of refinements to the initial plan including the relocation of the proposed neighbourhood Health Centre to a more accessible site in a future phase. 

At the planning committee on 15 February 2024, members voted for a resolution to grant planning permission, subject to section 106 agreements and resolution of outstanding issues with National Highways.

• Project Title: Bunker Housing – Dunster Close Garage Site
• Delivery Body: Brighton & Hove City Council
• Funding Award: £22,137 - Land Release Fund SCB, LRF Phase 3

This project has evolved from its initial conception into one of the most prominent regional development opportunities. One year after proposals were announced for the transformation of a 7.9-hectare brownfield site the ambitious development at North Street Quarter in Lewes was granted planning permission in February 2024 (subject to approval of final highways matters).

The project is led by Human Nature, a Lewes based company, in partnership with the council and one of the core fundamentals of the design is to prioritise people over cars. The Phoenix will be a walkable, multi-use development on a former industrial site in Lewes, within the South Downs National Park. The mixed-income, multi-tenure development will provide 685 homes (with 30% affordable – made up of 154 homes at local housing allowance levels and the remainder as First Homes), creating a place to start out in life and a place to stay. When complete, it will be the UK’s largest timber-structure neighbourhood, and a blueprint for sustainable placemaking and social impact that can be deployed at scale.

Human Nature is working with some of the UK’s leading architects, landscape designers and engineers plus local businesses and foundations to create breakthrough models in sustainable placemaking, prioritising social value and impact. The Phoenix was master-planned by Human Nature’s in-house design team, regenerative design agency Periscope, and Kathryn Firth, director of master-planning and urban design at Arup.

An emphasis on building connections and enabling interaction in shared spaces and facilities runs through the design of the Phoenix. In addition to 685 highly energy-efficient homes powered by renewable energy, the new neighbourhood includes public squares and gardens, dedicated community buildings (including a low-cost canteen) and a site-long river walk. A co-mobility hub will incorporate electric-car share, car hire and car club, electric bike service and a shuttle-bus facility – enabling a shift away from reliance on private vehicle ownership and creating safe streets for walking, cycling and wheeling.

In Parcel 1, the first homes designed in detail (by Ash Sakula Architects) are interwoven with play areas, communal garden plots and a shared cycle store intended to facilitate interaction and promote a culture of shared living. Designed in collaboration with Periscope, a central courtyard gives residents a place to sit, pause, talk and play and incorporates a rain garden providing protection against flooding – features which will be found across the Phoenix.

In the wider plan, climate-progressive innovations include a data-driven renewable energy system set to enable10–20% reductions in residents’ energy bills (part of Human Nature’s goal of ‘radical affordability’), on-site recycling, waste-management and composting facilities, and an urban-farming and community-gardening strategy.

The existing industrial site

Collaboration, connection and community

The Phoenix team have worked closely with thousands of local residents, three dedicated community working groups and more than 60 businesses and stakeholder organisations to evolve the project in response to community needs. Since the initial planning application was submitted in early 2023, there have been three rounds of consultation, resulting in a number of refinements to the initial plan including the relocation of the proposed neighbourhood Health Centre to a more accessible site in a future phase. At the planning committee on 15 February 2024, members voted for a resolution to grant planning permission, subject to section 106 agreements and resolution of outstanding issues with National Highways.

• Project Title: Bunker Housing – Dunster Close Garage Site 
• Delivery Body: Brighton & Hove City Council 
• Funding Award: £22,137 - Land Release Fund SCB, LRF Phase 3

Brighton & Hove continues to experience a housing crisis with little space to build new homes and soaring rents and house prices. It is increasingly difficult for young families to afford to live in the city and the council has committed to provide genuinely affordable homes to retain a more balanced demographic. Smaller sites that the council have chosen not to develop themselves due to economies of scale were made available to community-led housing groups to build self-build homes for affordable rent.

Bunker Housing Co-operative is a self-build housing cooperative, defined as individuals or a group that finance, codesign and commission the homes from a SME builder rather than purchasing a finished product from a developer. The Bunker families formed the co-operative and worked on the council’s community led housing pilot scheme to develop their first two houses on a former garage site. The small (0.029 ha) site at Dunster Close in Brighton is another former garage block identified as part of a review of small sites owned by the Council’s Housing Revenue Account which is being developed by Bunker for two family houses for rent. 

Bunker have applied for Registered Provider (RP) status which will enable them to obtain funding from the Homes England Affordable Homes Programme for these homes and is necessary to address the affordability issue of the projected rents. Whilst the registration process is lengthy and will delay commencement of the main construction contract until January 2025, RP status gives both the council and coop members confidence that the organisation is financially viable, properly governed and provides decent, well managed homes at rents within Local Housing Allowance levels. The council is also supporting the development with a deferred payment lease, along with the BRLF/SCB allocation for enabling works, and it is hoped that the new homes will be ready for occupation by the end of 2025.

• Project Title: Knoll House, Brighton 
• Delivery Body: Brighton & Hove City Council 
• Funding Award: £526,400– BLRF2-2

The development of Knoll House will demolish a vacant decommissioned care facility which is no longer fit for purpose and deliver a new facility of 28 high quality supported living apartments. 

A refurbishment of the existing building was considered, but it would not deliver the council’s requirements for numbers of apartments, wheelchair accessibility, or energy efficiency. For this project to be viable, an allocation of £526,000 BLRF2 was needed to unlock the site. The funding is being used to demolish the existing building, remove asbestos, and upgrade a substation to provide sufficient capacity for the new apartments. Some of the new homes will be specifically for people aged between 18-25, and two of the new apartments will be designed for bariatric clients. 

Residents of the new apartments require support to maximise their independence ranging between 10 and 63 hours per week. The funding was awarded in August 2023 allowing for an immediate start on preparatory works and demolition is underway. Construction is due to begin in July 2024 and the completed apartments will be ready for occupation in February 2026.

• Project Title: Victoria Road, Worthing 
• Delivery Body: Adur & Worthing Councils 
• Funding Award: £104,349.00 – BLRF2-1

This scheme is being delivered on a Council-owned site which was formerly leased by Worthing’s Air Cadet HQ but has been vacant for a number of years. The award of £104,349 in October 2022 allowed the project to be brought forward and funded the demolition works, asbestos removal and enhanced groundworks. 

The development has been designed by ECE Architects and will be Worthing Borough Council’s first Passivhaus housing scheme delivered under its Emergency and Temporary Housing Programme. Passivhaus is a highly sustainable form of design and construction that delivers “net zero” homes which will help the Council achieve its Climate Change objectives and targets. The development comprises 11 one and two bedroom flats which have been deliberately designed to maximise solar gain through appropriate orientation of the building and consequently won’t need central heating. When completed, the flats will be well insulated, resulting in lower energy bills for tenants and promoting good health and wellbeing.

The project has progressed and in 2023, the demolition works were completed ahead of the procurement of the Main Works Programme which is currently scheduled to be awarded to a Contractor in late Summer 2024.

Adur District Council Small Sites Programme 

This programme is redeveloping small sites in council ownership, most of which are blocks of garages, to deliver much-needed affordable housing in an area with over 700 households on the housing waiting list.

1. St Giles Close
2. Gardner Road
3. Sylvan Road
4. Wilmot Road
5. Daniel Close
6. Gravelly Crescent

Land Release Fund funding is supporting the council to deliver 6 of these sites. The sites comprise out-ofdate garages, some in a serious state of dilapidation and many used for storage as they are too small for modern cars. The sites are underutilised and uninviting and are subject to antisocial behaviour, including fly-tipping. The programme will regenerate these sites, creating 33 new council homes for rent and improved landscaping for wider public use.

Bespoke plans for each of the sites have been produced and, following online public consultation on the initial proposals in summer 2020, refined by architects to also consider site surveys and feedback from planning officers.

The proposals vary from site to site and are for a range of 2 and 3-bedroom homes and 1 and 2-bedroom flats and bungalows, with some suitable for people with mobility problems to meet a range of housing needs. 

In autumn 2021 planning permission was secured for 4 sites – St Giles Close, Gardner Road, Sylvan Road, and Wilmot Road. All of these are now well underway with construction work and completions due in 2024. Planning permission has been granted for Daniel Close and Gravelly Crescent and work will get underway on these sites in 2024. 

The new homes will achieve high standards of sustainability. A ‘fabric first’ approach will ensure that the homes will be very well insulated, and they will also be heated by energy efficient air source heat pumps. Solar panels will be fitted where possible to generate power and help to offset energy bills for future residents.

The Ashcroft Sheltered Housing Scheme

Located on Kingston Lane in Shoreham By Sea. The site consists of a main block of 21 flats (including bedsits and 2-bed flats) and 8 bungalows and has offered sheltered housing to Council tenants since 1982. In January 2020 all residents were decanted from the main building due to fire safety concerns, and the block has remained entirely unoccupied since. 

The outdated state and layout of the building and the costs required to update and maintain it suggest that the building is at the end of its useful life and is now considered moribund by Adur District Council. The Council modelled options for refurbishment and redevelopment and consulted with residents.

In March 2021, a preferred option was agreed which consists of knocking the block down and constructing a new block of 43 units with modern assistive technology and flexible care packages, providing for residents with a wide range of needs in accessible, modern accommodation with attractive communal areas. 

The scheme has got the backing of local members and the Executive Member for Housing, and the Council’s Affordable Housing Delivery Group and Sheltered Housing Team. The need to demolish the main block currently rendered the scheme unviable, so alternative support was sought to enable the scheme to be brought forward. 

Provision of BLRF funding addressed this challenge to enable the project to move forward, delivering much needed purpose-built accommodation provided at social rent levels for elderly people. As a result of the scheme, 44 (up from the original 43) social housing units will come forward, releasing other desperately-needed homes for general needs accommodation, and in combination, house a significant proportion of the 756 households currently on the Council’s housing register (158 of which are older households and would qualify for accommodation at Ashcroft). 

The scheme was awarded £407,000 for demolition and other costs, under Phase 3 BLRF. Demolition has now completed in readiness for start of construction.

Hove Station Area Masterplan, Hove

This project sees Brighton & Hove City Council facilitating the redevelopment of the Conway Street Industrial Estate, an eight-and-a-half-acre area on the east side of Hove Station. It is made up of numerous sites in multiple ownerships, including the council and Network Rail, all at varying stages of development. 

The overall built environment and public realm is uninspiring, and the many underutilised spaces and large areas of surface car parking provide significant transformational opportunities, for a vibrant mixed use high-density redevelopment in this inner-urban area of Hove. 

The area forms a Strategic Allocation for a minimum of 12,000sqm of office and business floorspace and 200 residential units within the wider Hove Station Development Area (DA6), as defined in the adopted City Plan Part 1. The project has now delivered a masterplan for the area, in the form of a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), to provide a positive and coherent framework to manage future development and regeneration. 

The SPD was adopted in September 2021, following Committee approval. The partnership are reviewing the way forward with this project since the disengagement from the MOU of the key stakeholder Network Rail. Due to changes in Network Rail’s priorities and their subsequent decision not to progress on the site, we continue to evaluate alternative options to bring the scheme forward in a way that deliver maximum benefit.

Future of Public Sector Office, Strategic

COVID-19 had a dramatic impact on the way that public sector staff worked. Much work was undertaken and continues to influence the ways of working for Greater Brighton and SPACES OPE partners. This resulted in a considerable streamlining of estate resources and the work reached a level of development where the team felt confident to close out the project. This was completed in Q3 2023.

Preston Circus Fire Station, Brighton

This project sees East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service refurbishing their busiest Community Fire Station, originally built in 1938, to create modern fit-for purpose facilities that will include individual sleeping accommodation as well as creating new commercial space to let preferably to public sector partners. Works began in March 2024 to refurbish the Fire Sation. 

The project focuses on reordering the internal spaces and circulation to reduce the risk of contamination for the crews, to provide them with on station individual sleeping accommodation and to provide a new community room. The Preston Circus crews remain operational having temporarily decanted to Dyke Road. They will be back at Preston Circus by the end of the year upon completion of the project.

Moulsecoomb Housing and Community Hub

This project is regenerating an underutilised four-and-a-half-acre site in Moulsecoomb to deliver a £70 million scheme comprising 212 council homes, a new community hub and a range of open spaces and outdoor facilities. The new hub will improve the services and facilities available for residents of Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, among the 20% most deprived neighbourhoods in the country. It will bring together GP and community health services, a pharmacy, Moulsecoomb Library, and adult learning classrooms under one roof, alongside hireable community rooms and a community café. 

Proposals also include a new centre for youth services within the hub, with a separate entrance. Basing these organisations in the same building will enable them to work better together and provide residents with a single purpose-built facility from which to access a range of key services. It also releases a number of sites to build much-needed new affordable homes, which are being delivered by the council’s New Homes for Neighbourhood’s Programme and forms part of the council’s package of actions to provide more housing in the city. The proposals are for a mix of 1, 2, 3 and 4-bed homes, as well as several fully accessible homes to meet a range of housing needs. The homes will be let through the council’s Homemove register, which currently has a waiting list of approximately 7,000 households

The redevelopment will also create new open spaces and outdoor facilities, including a plaza comprising seating and play equipment, pocket parks and small sided 3G pitches and a skate park, as well as wider public realm improvements. 

Following resident consultation in 2020 to 2021, the council has been working with project partners to refine the proposals that now place the hub in the heart of the wider development to improve visibility and accessibility. 

In November and December 2021 councillors authorised a budget of £2.1 million to finalise and submit a planning application for the project, which was made in early March 2022. Planning permission was granted in early 2023. In order to deal with the challenge financial viability due to increased inflation, a change in procurement route was approved at committee in March 2024. 

This allows the Council to reach a more competitive market enhancing value for money and shifts much of the risk to the contractor. The tender will be issued during summer 2024, with a contractor scheduled to be appointed by the end of the year, starting on site in January 2025.

Preston Barracks Primary Care Facility, Brighton

This project sees Brighton & Hove Clinical Commissioning Group working with project partners to secure the delivery of a new medical facility as part of the wider Preston Barracks regeneration scheme. The new medical facility will help to meet the future healthcare need of the area – where population growth is anticipated to be the highest of any area of the city, creating major demand for additional general practice services that are already extremely stretched. 

Construction of the new medical facility (as part of the residential development) is now well underway, scheduled for handover at end-July 2022 and immediately followed by an 8-month fit-out programme to allow for occupation in March 2023. Brighton & Hove Clinical Commissioning Group has identified two practices to expand into the new medical facility, increasing patient capacity from 11,000 to 16,000 (a 45% increase) creating broader and better access to health and care for the local community. 

Both practices provided their formal commitment to occupying the new facility in March 2019. The process of assigning the lease to the practices has been delayed due to project delays caused by cost inflation. The partnership is committed to delivering the planned scheme with occupation in 2025.

Patcham Court Farm, Brighton

This project sees Brighton & Hove City Council, the asset owner, facilitating the redevelopment of a vacant three-and-a-half-acre site formerly part of the wider landholding of Patcham Court but becoming physically divided from its associated farmland in the late 1980s to early 1990s following the development of the A27 bypass. 

The site has not been developed since that time, despite numerous attempts to bring it forward. The council is now at an advanced stage of negotiations with its preferred partner, the Royal Mail Group. Royal Mail have undertaken consultation with stakeholders and local residents in advance of submitting a full planning application and have revised the location to the site access to mitigate the impact on the local road network and on surrounding properties in response to concerns expressed by residents. 

Royal Mail have a Planning Performance Agreement in place and have submitted a full planning application. The relocation and consolidation of the existing Royal Mail sorting office services unlocks two significant development sites In Brighton and Hove with the potential to deliver an indicative 177 residential units and 3000sqm of office space. 

The council is currently working with Hyde Housing Association as part of its Homes for Brighton and Hove Joint Venture (JV) partnership who have progressed initial design and planning pre-app advice on the sites and have made an offer for the Hove site, however progress is paused until the planning application is determined.

Burgess Hill Station

This project seeks to regenerate a 3.65 ha (9 acre site) in and around Burgess Hill railway station, encompassing the current train station, former sidings and station yard, station car park, adjacent car park, allotment site and recreation area/playground. The land parcels are in the ownership of both the council and Network Rail. 

The main station building dates to 1877 and is outdated with poor accessibility. The wider redevelopment area is largely unappealing, makes inefficient use of public sector land and performs poorly as both a gateway to the town and as a public transport interchange. 

This project aims to comprehensively redevelop the brownfield site, to deliver up to 400 new homes, ancillary commercial space, enhanced and accessible station infrastructure, and public realm improvements. The project will require the relocation of the allotments site to an alternative location. The intention is to maintain the current levels of parking, through the provision of a new multi-storey facility, and to retain and upgrade the recreation and play space. 

The scheme would create clearly defined, safer, high-quality public spaces in a way that respects the area’s historic character. The project would bring wider economic benefits, complementing the planned regeneration and growth of the town centre and nearby Brookleigh development. Specialist property and design advisors were commissioned in late-2019 to prepare a mixed-used development scheme and programme for the combined property assets

A preferred scheme was identified and a detailed development appraisal completed in summer 2020. Following the pandemic and ongoing inflation pressures the project became stuck and was consequently awarded One Public Estate “top-up” funding in March 2021, enabling the consultant team to be reengaged. 

The council and Network Rail signed a Memorandum of Understanding in April 2021, agreeing to collaborate on all aspects of project planning and delivery and demonstrating continued commitment to this joint endeavour. The consultant team delivered its draft report in November 2021. This contains 4 options, all of which face viability challenges. Project partners have considered ways to address the dual challenges of the viability and land assembly. 

The project viability report was updated in February 2024 which confirmed that the viability issues remain. The partners, as part of a review of procurement and delivery options, are also examining the opportunity to use the existing ‘Blocwork’ Joint Venture organisation. The scheme is scheduled to progress to the submission stage and public examination in late 2024/early 2025. 

Land Release Funding with a plan to bid in 2024. Public sector partners working together to take a more strategic approach to asset management has demonstrable benefits, in terms of supporting the region’s economic, social, and environmental productivity priorities.

Public sector partners working together to take a more strategic approach to asset management has demonstrable benefits, in terms of supporting the region’s economic, social, and environmental productivity priorities.

The local programme will continue to facilitate such collaboration by:

• upporting the progression of the existing project portfolio, through to successful completion
• building knowledge of partners’ and government departments’ new and emerging asset management strategies, wherever possible supporting plans and identifying opportunities
• maintaining existing and building new relationships within and beyond the partnership, to identify new collaboration possibilities – including exploring the potential for more strategic projects and/or activities
• identifying a pipeline of future projects and bidding for new funding, as and when call open
• keeping abreast of wider initiatives and activities impacting asset management, use and the built environment – ranging from Circular Economy to Social Value and the Integrated Care Partnership – and fostering learning and links across the partnership to support implementation
• review the overall programme to ensure that benefits and delivery are on track and in line with current objectives
• co-ordinate and refine BLRF bids to optimise opportunities to win funding in competitive calls for submission