Press Release Under embargo: 00.01am Tuesday 19th June 2018 FOI request reveals scale of south east council sell-off Freedom of Information Act findings released on launch of Locality’s Save Our Spaces campaign A new report, The Great British Sell Off, released today (Tuesday 19th June 2018) by charity Locality reveals that the South East is losing more publicly owned buildings and spaces than any other region in England. These are our parks, town halls, libraries and swimming pools. The report publishes the results of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request made by the charity to all 74 councils in the South East in January 2018. The results indicate that nearly 900 public buildings and spaces in the South East are being sold off every year (1). The figures are only indicative at regional level as regional sample sizes vary. Many are being lost to private developers for the highest price and will never be used for vital community services and support. The FOI results also show that less than half (48%) of councils in the South East have a strategy to support community ownership, demonstrating the significant lack of planning and a short-term approach to making critical decisions about public buildings and spaces being permanently lost to the community. With no official figures published on the speed and scale of the sell off, these FOI findings are the only current indication of the size of the problem. They show the consistently significant number of public buildings and spaces being sold year on year in the region from 2012 to 2016. The British Sell Off is published on the launch of Save Our Spaces, Locality’s campaign to protect these spaces from being sold off to private developers for short term gain.
Press Release Under embargo: 00.01am Tuesday 19th June 2018 FOI request reveals scale of south east council sell-off Freedom of Information Act findings released on launch of Locality’s Save Our Spaces campaign A new report, The Great British Sell Off, released today (Tuesday 19th June 2018) by charity Locality reveals that the South East is losing more publicly owned buildings and spaces than any other region in England. These are our parks, town halls, libraries and swimming pools. The report publishes the results of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request made by the charity to all 74 councils in the South East in January 2018. The results indicate that nearly 900 public buildings and spaces in the South East are being sold off every year (1). The figures are only indicative at regional level as regional sample sizes vary. Many are being lost to private developers for the highest price and will never be used for vital community services and support. The FOI results also show that less than half (48%) of councils in the South East have a strategy to support community ownership, demonstrating the significant lack of planning and a short-term approach to making critical decisions about public buildings and spaces being permanently lost to the community. With no official figures published on the speed and scale of the sell off, these FOI findings are the only current indication of the size of the problem. They show the consistently significant number of public buildings and spaces being sold year on year in the region from 2012 to 2016. The British Sell Off is published on the launch of Save Our Spaces, Locality’s campaign to protect these spaces from being sold off to private developers for short term gain.
SOS-Press-Release-south-east-1.docx