The Localism Act 2011 is empowering local people and local government as powers are being moved from central government. Local government has been given new flexibilities and powers and is encouraged to explore more innovative, effective and efficient ways to deliver public services.
Local communities have been given new rights to enable them to challenge existing service delivery and to take a more proactive role in the future delivery of public services.
This shift in power also affects land and buildings, which have an important role to play in the cohesiveness, sustainability and vibrancy of communities. The Localism Act provides clarity and greater rights for communities to identify and be involved with sustaining these assets. The success of the Olympics has put the spotlight on the impact of regeneration projects on communities and ensuring their long term sustainability and whilst on a different scale, the lessons learned from the legacy project are applicable in smaller scale community projects.
The needs and expectations of our communities are changing, and we know that public services of the future will be provided very differently to the way they are now. It is likely that such changes in service delivery will involve a number of public, community and private sector organisations, and the physical estates of those organisations will need to change to provide the most effective and efficient property solutions to support service delivery needs.
Authorities need to look at their assets closer to make sure they are getting the most from them. Regeneration projects will need to re-think their approach to meeting public demand – buildings that just had one use are no longer viable in many cases. Putting the community needs first will help to deliver more efficient buildings that are multipurpose and able to contribute to income generation in the future.
David Bentley, CIPFA Head of Asset Management