Following LocatED’s involvement in our Schools Development Conference we’ve been speaking exclusively with Chief Executive Lara Newman…

Could you explore how LocatED works collaboratively to advance the development of school estates?

LocatED buys sites on behalf of the DfE for new schools and delivers mixed use developments, with schools at their centre, that help to support a more efficient estate and to provide new housing. We supplement ideas like the School Rebuilding Programme with the work that we do. For example, we would not get involved in building new schools that are part of a conditional programme to refurbish new schools. But we do work with local authorities on individual schools where they have surplus land that can generate capital to then address their own condition needs, therefore reducing the funding needed from HM Treasury and the DfE on that particular school building programme. 

LocatED is an arms-length body for the Department of Education, how do you cooperate to deliver the best educational outcomes?

As an arm’s length body to the DfE, we were set up to be experts in property. And we are property experts, that’s what we do. We’re here to provide property solutions that will enable the DfE to deliver schools in a way that meets the needs of students who are being educated and who are, eventually, going to become citizens and professionals in the 21st century. 

As an organisation, we feel very strongly that, particularly given fluctuations in population, we ought to be looking at how we deliver schools flexibly, especially in an urban context. That means looking at how, as a population contracts or grows, we can then use the space within school buildings for other uses that don’t create a liability or security issue for teachers, students, and staff. 

LocatED is about making the education estate more efficient; with the DfE’s aims in mind we will look at how we can help schools utilise and generate profit from space they’re not using. We also provide support in using surplus land or school buildings for housing projects, including affordable housing. I’m also tremendously interested in the questions that have arisen around how school building and refurbishment projects, or even just how we might change spaces in schools, can help support children and young people through some of the emotional and psychological hurdles that have arisen or been amplified during the pandemic. 

You are one of the largest land-purchasing government bodies, what are your primary considerations when choosing sites?

Since our inception in late 2016, LocatED has purchased more than 170 sites for new schools, which is quite significant in terms of an acquisition program within government. We are one of the largest, if not the largest, land purchasing government bodies. Our primary considerations are that these sites meet the parameters we’ve been given in terms of location and size (although in an urban location we realise we might have to be flexible with the latter!), that they meet the trust’s requirements, as well as being good value for money for the taxpayer. 

We receive our commissions from the DfE and those commissions are based on approved schools or a known local need for a school. In some cases, we get involved in projects other than free schools, such as Institutes of Technology or Further Education Colleges, but we are mainly commissioned on the basis of addressing the need for a school in a particular area, usually through an approved free school waive.

How does LocatED assist schools in managing their estates and land resources?

We are cited in the DfE’s Good Estates Management Guide for Schools (GEMS) and we work with schools, academies, multi-academy trusts, and local authorities that are looking at how to better use their estates. That work encompasses everything from leases to schools that are looking to offload space that they don’t, or no longer need to use, to helping schools that want to improve their asset management by supporting them to better engage third parties who can aid them as a source of income. Our work also includes good estate management, looking at where a school has surplus space in terms of buildings or land on site and helping them to free it up for other uses. 

How does LocatED work with developers and councils to incorporate school building into mixed-use developments? 

LocatED leads its own mixed-use developments with schools at the heart of their design, they typically also include housing and commercial space, when a site can combine all of those needs and provide the best value solution for the DfE.  In areas where a school is needed, but the site value, or the land value, is extremely high it’s often an issue of viability; we need to take a creative approach to combine uses to reduce the land cost in order to provide housing or other uses that can then subsidise the cost of the school. We work closely with local authorities and other government bodies to see how the sites can best support the needs of the local community. We then work closely with the developer to take these projects forwards responsibly.

Our work sits alongside that of Mike Lea’s Planning team in the DfE, which does some tremendous work when it comes to trying to incorporate schools into new residential developments, working closely with the private property sector and other government bodies. Additionally, LocatED and the DfE considers Section 106 sites when we’re looking for a new site following a new commission by the DfE.