How to Find Every Council-Owned Building in Your Town, Then Check If It’s Being Used Well

If you’ve ever walked past a shuttered council office, a half-empty depot, or a “temporary” portacabin that’s been there for years, you’ve had the same thought as most residents: how many buildings does the council actually own, and what are we paying for?

Council owned buildings are like a second budget that sits quietly in the background. When they’re used well, they support services, keep communities safe, and can even bring in income. When they’re used badly, they soak up repairs, security, and energy costs, while frontline services go without.

For Reform UK supporters, this is the practical side of accountability. If you want less waste, fewer rip-off contracts, and more money where it belongs, you start by finding the assets, then asking hard questions.

Start with the list councils already have to publish

Many people assume you need insider access to discover the council’s property portfolio. You don’t.

UK councils are expected to publish lists of land and buildings they own or occupy under the Local Government Transparency Code. In plain terms, your council should already be publishing a downloadable file that names properties and gives addresses or descriptions.

Here’s how to find it quickly:

• Go to your council website and use the search box for “land and buildings”, “asset register”, “property list”, or “transparency”.
• Check the “Open data” or “Transparency” pages, the file is often a spreadsheet (CSV or Excel).
• If you hit a dead end, search the wider web for the council name plus “land and property list”, many councils host the file in a documents system that normal site search misses.

What you’re looking for is a list that usually includes the building name, address, postcode, whether it’s owned or leased, and sometimes size (floor area) or map coordinates.

Build a complete master list (so nothing slips through)

Councils don’t always label things in a way that’s easy to understand. One entry might say “Depot, Industrial Estate”, another might use an internal code, and a third might list only a street name.

Your job is to turn the council’s file into a usable inventory you can actually analyse. A simple spreadsheet is fine.

A good master list adds:

Clear categories: office, community centre, library, depot, car park, housing office, storage, sports facility, vacant, sold, leased out.
Local area tags: ward, village, estate, or neighbourhood.
A plain-English description: “Former youth centre, now locked up”, beats “Building 17”.

If the asset list includes coordinates, you can paste them into common map tools and create your own map layer. Mapping is worth doing because patterns jump out fast, clusters of empty buildings, duplicate sites serving the same purpose, or valuable plots sitting idle.

A quick tip: add a column for “Last seen in use (month/year)”. Your own observation, plus local knowledge, can be more accurate than a stale database.

Confirm ownership and check for strings attached

An “asset list” tells you what the council says it owns or occupies. It doesn’t always explain the legal reality.

Before you accuse anyone of waste, get the basics right:

Owned vs leased: leased buildings can be expensive to exit, even if they’re underused.
Restrictions: some sites have covenants, planning limits, or heritage rules.
Shared sites: a building might be part council, part NHS, or linked to another public body.

If something looks odd, use Freedom of Information (FOI) to fill gaps. Keep it short and precise. Useful FOI questions include:

• “For each property on your land and buildings list, please provide annual running cost for the last full financial year (utilities, rates, maintenance, security).”
• “Please provide occupancy levels, opening hours, and primary service delivered for each public-facing building.”
• “For vacant buildings, please provide date last used, reason for vacancy, and current plan.”

If the council refuses because it’s “too burdensome”, narrow it to your town centre or one ward. Start small, then expand.

How to check if a council building is being used well (a simple test)

A building can be “in use” and still be poor value. Think of a sports centre that’s open, but bleeding money due to bad maintenance, or a community space booked for two hours a week.

When you assess council owned buildings, focus on four areas:

1) Purpose and public value

What service does it deliver, and who benefits?

A building can be worth keeping if it prevents bigger costs elsewhere, like a youth space that reduces anti-social behaviour, or a community hub that supports vulnerable residents. Empty buildings often attract vandalism, fly-tipping, and crime, so “doing nothing” isn’t free.

2) Utilisation (how much it’s actually used)

Look for simple signals:

• Opening hours that match demand, not convenience
• Rooms and desks that are actually occupied
• Public booking calendars that show real activity

If a building is mostly empty, ask why. Is it the wrong location, poor access, or a service that could be delivered differently?

3) Cost and contracts

This is where waste hides. A building’s headline cost often isn’t the mortgage or rent, it’s what sits underneath: agency staff, outsourced cleaning, security patrols, repairs, and “call-out” fees.

Professional guidance on using buildings and services more efficiently can help you ask smarter questions, see resource management guidance for property and facilities.

4) Condition and backlog

Councils sometimes keep a building open because closing it would force them to admit the maintenance backlog. You can spot this in broken heating, limited rooms “out of use”, and repeated temporary fixes.

Here’s a quick way to judge what you’re seeing:

What you see	A likely red flag	A healthy sign
Closed shutters most days	Building is “kept” but not used	Clear public hours and bookings
Lots of separate small sites	Duplicate overheads	Shared hubs with strong footfall
Regular private contractor vans	Expensive reactive repairs	Planned maintenance cycle
“Temporary” security fencing	Vacant asset draining cash	Clear plan to sell, rent, or reuse

Don’t forget depots, yards, and waste sites (they matter more than you think)

People tend to focus on civic buildings, like town halls and offices. The less visible sites can cost more, depots, workshops, storage yards, and waste facilities.

These buildings affect the basics residents care about: street cleaning, pothole repairs, bin collections, and the ability to run reliable routes.

If you’re assessing these sites, it helps to understand where waste services are heading nationally. The Local Government Association has a solid overview in its councillors’ guide to waste and recycling reforms. Even if you’re not a councillor, it explains why councils may need different space, vehicles, and site layouts.

You can also sanity-check claims about waste volumes and trends using UK waste statistics. If a council is holding onto a site “because waste is rising”, the national picture gives context.

Turn your findings into pressure that’s hard to ignore

Information only matters if it changes decisions. Package your work so it’s clear, fair, and easy to act on.

A strong resident brief includes:

A one-page summary: number of buildings, number vacant, estimated annual running cost of the worst cases (if known).
Three priority asks: sell, rent out, merge services, reopen for community use, or move staff into fewer buildings.
A reinvestment idea: what the savings could fund locally, bus miles, pothole repairs, frontline enforcement, or support for small firms through fairer local charges.

This fits naturally with Reform UK’s argument that local government should cut waste first, not squeeze residents, and that public bodies should serve the public, not themselves. When councils stop paying over the odds for contractors and stop treating empty buildings as “normal”, money goes further.

Conclusion: make the council’s property work for residents again

Finding every council building in your town isn’t mysterious, it’s mostly paperwork, a bit of mapping, and the confidence to ask direct questions. Once you’ve got a list, you can sort the useful sites from the costly ones fast.

Pick one area, build your inventory, and get the facts in writing. Then push for decisions that put accountability first, so council owned buildings support services, not waste.