The consulting arm of Watling Real Estate has issued an updated edition of its 2025 report “Unlocking the Public Estate”.
Guy Brett, director and head of Watling Consulting, said the government’s latest SEND reform announcements had changed the context for local government.
Guy Brett shares his thoughts
He said, “Two Budget decisions have quietly created the conditions for estate transformation in local government – changes we believe may have gone largely unnoticed. The SEND funding is a non-estate policy but will have estate level impact. This, and the government’s decision to move to a three settlement provides stability and enables local government officers to plan with more confidence.”
Brett added that too often the volatility of single year settlements had been the excuse for inaction. However, stability now removed that constraint.
“Leaders have known what they should do with their estate – consolidate, reinvest, repurpose, co‑locate – but have been unable to take the first step because they simply cannot absorb the revenue pressure that comes with transformation – feasibility work, programme management, double‑running costs, decanting, culture change.
“The Budget’s decision to reform the statutory override and write down historic DSG deficits by 90%, does not fund rationalisation. However, the more immediate estate impact of the Budget reform is fiscal stabilisation. It helps mitigate some of the paralysis by reducing the immediate risk these deficits pose to financial sustainability.”
Shifting the attitude
Watling’s updated guidance comes in the wake of EY’s latest Financial Resilience Barometer. It showed that many s151 officers in local government still rated financial sustainability as fragile.
Brett added: “We should be clear. There is still no capital to modernise, decarbonise and bring the estate up to standard, nor funding to address capacity gaps. While subsequent SEND reforms include capital investment in specialist and inclusive education provision, this is service-specific funding rather than a general local authority estate renewal programme.
“But the two Budget announcements together shift the environment from an attitude of ‘We can’t even talk about rationalisation right now’, to ‘We can both talk about it and start planning it’.”
He said that councils should move quickly to refresh estate strategies with a medium-term lens. There should be focus to build clearer programme pipelines, re‑evaluate hybrid working and office footprints, and re‑prioritise disposals and reinvestment opportunities.
“The new climate helps strengthen business cases with multi‑year assumptions and officers can use improved revenue stability to fund early‑stage feasibility work.”
