Angela 1 Harrowing One Public Estate Government Property Disposal Sale Capital Receipts

Five London boroughs have been chosen to roll out a pilot programme for helping to remedy the capital’s health staffing crisis by building new homes on surplus NHS land. Angela Harrowing, Deputy Director of Housing & Public Estate Disposals at the Office of Government Property, revealed at our Blue Light Estates Conference that the ‘NHS Homes for Staff’ pilots are being run in the boroughs of Barnet, Bexley, Croydon, Kingston-upon-Thames and Lewisham.

The One Public Estate (OPE) partnership between central Government and councils is working with the Greater London Authority (GLA) and the Department of Health and Social Care to fund and support the pilots.

The initiative is set to deliver homes for health service staff on surplus NHS land in London – designed to remedy poor NHS staff retention in London and the South East where its reported 40% of nurses plan to leave within the next five years, with 70% of those planning to quite saying they would change their mind if affordable housing was available.
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Many NHS staff want to relocate to more affordable areas across the UK due to the big disparity between nurses’ wages and housing costs. Harrowing said: “We start not from the point of view of estates but how to recruit and retain staff.”

Harrowing said OPE has funded a director post within GLA to develop a toolkit to share learning and aid national roll-out of the initiative which former Health Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt pledged would deliver 3,000 homes for NHS staff or surplus land.

Showcasing how estates collaboration is working in the public-sector Harrowing showcased the regeneration of Bedford Town Centre. Twenty surplus sites have been identified in Bedford – owned by public bodies including the council, NHS, police, Department for Work and Pensions, and the Ministry of Justice.

Some of the key ‘early wins’ within the project include the police service’s co-location into Bedford Council’s Civic Centre, which has freed up the sale of the town’s former police station – generating a £2m receipt and better integration of policing and council neighbourhood services.

OPE has also provided £500,000 worth of funding to draw up a masterplan covering the gateway to the railway station and Bedford riverside as well as a large former brewery site adjoining Network Rail land that can deliver around 200 new homes.
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