1 What is One Public Estate?
One Public Estate (OPE) is a national programme, jointly managed by Cabinet Office and the Local Government Association, that brings public sector organisations together. By working in partnership we can look at how we can use our land and buildings collaboratively to:
- improve public services to residents, visitors, employees and businesses in the county
- renew and rationalise the public estate so there is a reduction in the amount of money we spend on buildings
- free up much needed land for the development of housing, commercial and employment space
- support local economic growth
- generate capital receipts and income.
OPE supports the delivery of a range of countywide and national priorities, including Growth Deals and blue-light (emergency services) collaboration, 21st century libraries, sustainability and co-location of public services such as health and social care. Find further information on the national programme.
2 Projects
In January 2017 the One Public Estate West Sussex Partnership joined the national OPE programme. We have been awarded revenue support grant funding of £640,000 to enable feasibility work to take place across five projects:
- Burgess Hill: This project will see the redevelopment of a number of sites within public sector ownership at The Brow. Proposals include the creation of a new tri-service blue light centre, new housing and commercial space to support regeneration in the area.
- Chichester: This project is led by Chichester District Council and aims to redevelop a significant number of sites in the city’s Southern Gateway area to improve transport links, access to the historic town centre and deliver new housing, leisure and commercial space.
- Crawley: This project is being delivered via the Crawley Growth Programme and aims to achieve the economic growth outcomes agreed in the Crawley Growth Deal. The County Buildings site redevelopment will contribute towards the delivery of much needed new Grade A office spaces, new town centre homes, new retail investment and transform the business and living environment in Crawley town centre.
This project complements the already completed and ongoing infrastructure and redevelopment projects in Crawley, such as the Eastern Gateway scheme, the Crawley Town Hall, Crawley College, Telford Place and the Station Gateway public realm and highways scheme. More importantly, this project is an opportunity to deliver place-making opportunities outlined in the Crawley local plan and other associated supplementary planning documents. - Drayton Depot: A combined highways, transport and emergency services facility. This will provide fleet maintenance facilities for WSCC, as well as three fire and rescue services (West Sussex, East Sussex and Surrey) Surrey Police, Sussex Police and SECAmb. Full feasibility, viability and designs are underway with a view to work starting on site early in 2019.
- Horsham: Two projects are underway, the first of which is a new combined blue light centre to provide operational and training facilities for WSFRS and Sussex Police. This project will release current blue light sites to enable Horsham District Council to deliver their planned regeneration of Hurst Road.
- Littlehampton: This project will be delivered in two phases. The first phase will deliver a new tri-service blue light operational centre with accommodation for fire, police and ambulance services. The second phase will bring together a number of sites at Maltravers/Fitzalan Road for a new public services hub, health provision and housing.
- Shoreham: Re-development of a vacant care home, health centre and library at Pond Road to allow for the provision of new and enhanced health, library and other public services, in conjunction with the Shoreham Community Centre. Any surplus land will be redeveloped for housing.
- Worthing: redevelopment of Centenary House, Durrington Lane. To provide new facilities for police, county and district councils and health partners. There is also an opportunity to create new housing and commercial space on the remainder of this site.
Next steps
We will continue to develop the projects and identify and quantify the benefits.
We will also continue to engage all interested parties in progress on the schemes and will keep updating this section with key information and contacts.
3 West Sussex Fire & Rescue
West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service (WSFRS) has 25 fire station sites across the county. The One Public Estate (OPE) programme provides an opportunity to deliver emergency services facilities in new, modern buildings for WSFRS, alongside the police and ambulance service.
The fire service elements of OPE will also help enable other projects by freeing up strategic sites that will allow partner organisations to deliver regeneration and housing, and to create new jobs.
All of the proposed WSFRS projects are in development with feasibility and viability studies progressing. Any fire station relocation will be subject to public consultation, to include:
- an assessment of community risks
- the effect on WSFRS emergency response standards
- the impact on retained firefighters, who must live or work close to the fire station when on call.
All opportunities to renew the WSFRS estate are being considered in the context of the statutory duty to collaborate with other blue-light services. We are working in partnership with them to explore how OPE projects could support this priority.
4 Partners
One Public Estate (OPE) is about working with partners to improve how we all deliver services to the public. A total of 18 organisations originally committed to joining the OPE West Sussex Partnership. Since then the partnership has grown, with a total of 22 organisations now involved.
West Sussex County Council (WSCC) is the lead authority for the partnership, and our partners are:
- Adur District Council
- Arun District Council
- Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust
- Chichester College Group
- Chichester District Council
- Coastal West Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group
- Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership
- Community Health Partnerships
- Crawley Borough Council
- Crawley Clinical Commissioning Group
- Homes England
- Horsham and Mid Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group
- Horsham District Council
- Mid Sussex District Council
- NHS Property Services
- Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust
- Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- Sussex Police
- Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service
- Worthing Borough Council.
5 Further information
For more information about the programme please contact us: