Local authority land

30.Local authorities must publish details of all land and building assets including:

 all service and office properties occupied or controlled by user bodies, both freehold and leasehold

 any properties occupied or run under Private Finance Initiative contracts

 all other properties they own or use, for example, hostels, laboratories,

investment properties and depots

 garages unless rented as part of a housing tenancy agreement

 surplus, sublet or vacant properties

 undeveloped land

 serviced or temporary offices where contractual or actual occupation exceeds three months, and

 all future commitments, for example under an agreement for lease, from when the contractual commitment is made.

For each land or building asset, the following information must be published together in one place:

 Unique Property Reference Number

 Unique asset identity – the local reference identifier used by the local body, sometimes known as local name or building block. There should be one entry per asset or user/owner (eg. on one site there could be several buildings or in one building there could be several users floors/rooms etc – where this is the case, each of these will have a separate asset identity). This must include the original reference number from the data source plus authority code

 name of the building/land or both

 street number or numbers – any sets of 2 or more numbers should be separated

with the ‘-‘ symbol (eg. 10-15 London Road)

 street name – this is the postal road address21

 post town

 United Kingdom postcode

 map reference – local authorities may use either Ordnance Survey or ISO 6709 systems to identify the location of an asset, but must make clear which is being used. Where an Ordnance Survey mapping system is used (the grid system) then assets will be identified using Eastings before Northings. Where geocoding in accordance with ISO 6709 is being used to identify the centre point of the asset location then that reference must indicate its ISO coordinates.

whether the local authority owns the freehold or a lease for the asset and for whichever category applies, the local authority must list all the characteristics that apply from the options given below:

for freehold assets:

o occupied by the local authority
o ground leasehold
o leasehold
o licence
o vacant (for vacant properties, local authorities should not publish the full address details and should only publish the first part of the postcode22).
for leasehold assets:
o occupied by the local authority o ground leasehold
o sub leasehold
o licence.

for other assets:

o free text description eg. rights of way, access etc23.

 whether or not the asset is land only (i.e. without permanent buildings) or it is land with a permanent building.

Click to access Local_Government_Transparency_Code_2014.pdf