REIMAGINING URBAN ASSET MANAGEMENT Unlocking value for sustainable cities

Richard Gawthorpe

Richard is Group Business Development Director for the Norse Group, with over 30 years of experience in the built environment for the private and public sectors, and a key leader of the executive team charged with strategic client retention, new client acquisition, and revenue growth. Cultivating long-term relationships and joint venture partnerships, Richard builds successful pipeline opportunities for public sector clients, creating new revenue streams and growth. His 'raison d'être' is to support, help and assist public sector clients, their communities and residents, to work and live well within the built environment. He is passionate about our planet!

Richard identifies the advantages of adopting circular economy principles. “Public sector land… presents a significant opportunity to create value. A strategic approach ensures that land is repurposed in a way that maximises both financial returns and social impact.” 

Context 

The future of our towns and cities is at a critical juncture. With public sector reform reshaping local government, the opportunity to reimagine urban assets has never been greater. 

The traditional reliance on government grant funding to maintain and enhance public assets is no longer viable. Instead, innovative approaches must transform underutilised spaces into thriving, self-sustaining communities. By integrating services, unlocking new revenue streams, and embedding circular economy principles, the sector can drive long-term resilience and financial independence. 

Across the UK, towns and cities contain vast amounts of underutilised or underperforming public assets. Redundant retail spaces, outdated office buildings, and surplus public sector land present significant opportunities. Rather than viewing these as liabilities, the sector (local authorities, blue light services, and health estates) must explore how they can be repurposed into dynamic, revenue-generating ecosystems. Converting surplus spaces into mixed-use developments—combining commercial, residential, and community assets—creates environments that attract businesses, support local enterprise, and provide essential services. Co-locating public services with commercial and residential elements improves accessibility, reduces operational costs, and enhances economic viability. This approach moves beyond asset disposal, shifting the focus to long-term value retention. 

Circular economy principles 

Embracing circular economy principles is critical to ensuring sustainable urban regeneration. Traditional asset management models follow a linear approach —build, use, dispose. Instead, resource efficiency, longevity, and continuous reinvestment must take priority. 

Adaptive reuse of buildings significantly reduces embodied carbon and costs, while regenerative urban design integrates green infrastructure, energy-efficient retrofitting, and modular construction to enhance resilience. Embedding smart resource management through Internet of Things-driven asset monitoring improves maintenance efficiency and extends asset lifecycles. These strategies reduce waste, lower operational costs, and create regenerative urban spaces that retain economic and social value over time. 

Ensuring urban asset strategies align with local needs is essential. Place-based service delivery allows investments to reflect demographic, economic, and social conditions, ensuring multi-use assets that evolve with community needs. A comprehensive approach to asset and service management maximises efficiency and sustainability. AI-powered predictive maintenance extends asset lifespans, while closed-loop waste and energy systems—such as waste-to-energy conversions—enhance financial and environmental returns. Public sector land, including surplus NHS estates and underutilised local authority property, presents a significant opportunity to create value. A strategic approach ensures that land is repurposed in a way that maximises both financial returns and social impact. 

Balancing urban expansion with Green Belt policies remains a challenge. However, by adopting innovative land-use strategies, the sector can unlock development potential without compromising environmental or planning constraints. Redeveloping brownfield and greyfield sites allow for compact, well-planned mixed-use developments that maximise land efficiency and drive economic growth. Sustainable urban extensions integrate transport, services, and housing holistically, while maximising infill development within existing urban centres reduces sprawl and enhances infrastructure utility. Aligning investments with long-term sustainability goals means incorporating renewable energy solutions such as solar, wind, and district heating networks, as well as water reuse systems like rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling. 

Planning and Infrastructure Bill 

A significant enabler of this transformation is the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, introduced to Parliament on 11 March 2025. Designed to accelerate the biggest building boom in a generation, the bill streamlines planning approvals, reduces bureaucratic constraints, and unlocks development potential across the UK. 

Key provisions include faster planning decisions to enable the rapid repurposing of underutilised assets, greater flexibility in land use to support mixed-use developments that drive economic sustainability, and infrastructure-led growth, ensuring that essential transport and public services are in place to sustain long-term regeneration. 

For local authorities and public sector estate managers, this legislation represents a game-changing opportunity. Aligning urban asset management strategies with the new planning framework allows investment to be unlocked, redevelopment to accelerate, and communities to become resilient and revenue-generating. The bill reinforces the need for integrated service management, strategic asset optimisation, and impact investment to maximise the benefits of these planning reforms. However, traditional funding models for public realm assets are becoming increasingly unsustainable. Government grants and borrowing constraints limit the ability of local authorities to invest in long-term infrastructure. Impact investment offers an alternative, unlocking capital for projects that deliver social, environmental, and financial returns. Investors - ranging from pension funds to social impact bonds - seek opportunities that align with their environmental, social, and governance objectives. 

The sector can tap into this funding by leveraging green bonds and impact investment strategies to attract sustainable infrastructure funding, subscription-based services for infrastructure and utilities to create recurring revenue streams, and by generating financial resilience through sustainable local governance. Establishing long-term investment funds allows commercial returns from public estate developments to be reinvested into maintaining public spaces, reducing reliance on government funding and ensuring that assets contribute to their own upkeep rather than becoming financial burdens. 

The landscape of urban asset management is evolving. Public sector reform offers an unprecedented opportunity to unlock value, reimagine service delivery, and build self-sustaining communities. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will accelerate this transformation by removing planning barriers, enabling faster development, and reinforcing the financial sustainability of public assets. The challenge now is to embrace innovation, rethink traditional models, and lead the transition toward a more sustainable, self-sufficient urban future.