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Place Pilots: Public Property in Place

Delivered through the One Public Estate programme, Place Pilots are bringing together all public asset owners in each place – central government organisations, councils and other public sector organisations – to deliver a more joined up approach to future public estate demand and supply.  


Place Pilots aim to deliver a smaller, better and greener public estate, informed by the needs and ambitions of places to transform places and services.  The pilots will also support wider shared national and local  priorities such as levelling up and housing. The pilots aim to: 

  • bring together multiple public estate owners, under joint local and central government leadership, to pilot joint portfolio planning and collaborative service delivery models in the context of local needs and ambitions
  • optimise investment by driving efficiency and value across the public estate and better public services by identifying opportunity for co-location, disposals, relocations, land assembly and other multi-portfolio collaboration 
  • embed a stronger focus on place into strategic asset management planning by mapping future estate demand alongside key growth and opportunity areas  
  • test new approaches and develop recommendations that can be replicated and scaled up to drive future uptake of a place-based approach across departmental and public sector estate strategies and different scale of place. 

The five geographical place pilot areas, selected to test the Place Pilot concept at a variety of scales, are: 

  • Derby 
  • Hull 
  • London Boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Hackney and Newham
  • Sheffield 
  • West Midlands Combined Authority area 

The pilots will be run over an 18 month period, with up to £500,000  revenue funding being awarded to each place.