The Department for Education’s property company has advised on the sale of surplus land at just one school in the past five years, Tes has learned.
This is after a LocatED director previously told a conference that schools were sitting on surplus land “the size of central London” - though the organisation has since told Tes that his estimate was based on a “theoretical maximum”.
LocatED, set up in 2017 with a £2 billion budget to find sites for free schools, has seen its remit shift over time as the free schools’ pipeline has slowed. Part of its changed remit is to advise on sales of school land deemed “surplus”.
But the value of this work has been questioned in light of the land sale figures obtained by Tes.
DfE property company under scrutiny
Since 2019 LocatED has been commissioned to review hundreds of sites for surplus land, and has identified 85 sites with the potential to be sold.
But a Freedom of Information request by Tes reveals that it has only advised on one sale in that time, from St John Fisher School in Chatham, Kent. Just over £3.8 million was raised from selling the 5.93-acre plot.
LocatED leads on the Surplus Land for Housing Pilot, which aims to identify surplus land on school sites that could be sold in order to generate money for capital investment in schools and release land for new homes
LocatED also disposes of sites that are no longer required by the DfE for educational use.
Julia Harnden, the Association of School and College Leaders’ funding specialist, said the figures suggest that the “value of the surplus land project is highly questionable”.
“It was never going to be easy to identify and sell surplus land to housing developers for a variety of reasons, and it may be that the obstacles and drawbacks are sometimes simply too difficult to overcome,” she said.
“Whether it was worth embarking upon at all is debatable.”
St John Fisher School had been selected for a rebuild on a neighbouring site. The original site was deemed surplus as a result.
‘Reinvestment into the education estate’
Regarding the 85 sites identified, LocatED told Tes that further due diligence and consultation would need to be undertaken before the landowners decided to dispose of the sites.
“As set out in our recently published handbook, the development of school land is complex and takes time, so it is unlikely that immediate capital returns would be seen,” a spokesperson for LocatED said.
“Furthermore, any disposal of surplus land is a decision to be made by schools and responsible bodies (not LocatED), and requires approval by the secretary of state.
“To date, our work has led to the sale of one site, which generated £3.85 million for reinvestment back into the education estate.
“Our work with schools continues and there remains potential to release further capital over the coming years, which will allow for reinvestment into the education estate.”
According to annual accounts, LocatED received £55,000 for the Surplus Land for Housing Pilot in 2022-23.
LocatED put forward a new business case for 2023 to 2025, which expanded its remit. This included progressing viable sites identified by the Surplus Land for Housing Pilot.
‘Log jam’ of applications
Academy funding consultant Tim Warneford told Tes that the sale of surplus land offers a win-win situation if it brings capital investment into schools and helps with housing shortages.
“But there seems to be a log jam in terms of the applications that are being submitted for approval from the secretary of state for school land disposal, which does not exist for similar land sales within either the further education or higher education sectors,” he said.
“LocatED are the government’s in-house property development representatives and when you look at the low number of projects that they themselves have managed to secure, it raises the question of why this is and why there haven’t been more.”
Matt Robertson, LocatED associate director for property, had told a Westminster Education Forum conference in 2022 that schools had “surplus land the size of central London”.
But LocatED has now clarified to Tes that the estimate was based on DfE data that did not take into account factors such as how the land is used, development viability and planning considerations.
LocatED chief executive Lara Newman warned a Westminster Education Forum conference last year that maintaining school space that was left empty because of falling pupil rolls will create “a large cost burden”.
Pupil numbers are expected to fall by more than 5 per cent between 2024 and 2028.
However, Ms Newman also cautioned that it could be difficult for schools to repurchase land if needed in the future if they sell sites off.
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