Property and utilities services

The Property Service

• The Council has a legal interest, owning and/or occupying, over 1,200 property assets, including land and buildings. A breakdown of these can be found in Appendix 1 of the Annual Property Report (Published December Annually) Committee Documents - Committee Minutes (suffolk.gov.uk)
• The Council’s property interests are overseen by a small, in-house, Corporate Property team, providing strategic advice and guidance, and decision making on key property matters. The team engages with the Council’s two principal suppliers of property services, Vertas and Concertus, both companies within the Vertas Group which is wholly owned by SCC and which is separately accountable to the Council.
• Vertas Property Management provides day to day facilities management services including building maintenance, health and safety compliance, facilities services (such as cleaning and security), service charge management. For further advice and information, contact Vertas online.
• Concertus Design and Property Consultants provides professional consultancy services including architecture and design, project management, cost consultancy and general practice surveying services. Specialist GP surveying and Estates services are provided by Lambert Smith Hampton via Concertus.

Corporate Property and its Strategic Drivers

The principal objectives of the Corporate Property function, and for the Council’s property holdings include :

• To support the ambitions set out in the Council’s Corporate Strategy
• To facilitate the provision of services to Suffolk’s residents
• To be a key enabler for the Council’s service transformation programmes
• To enable the co-location and integration of public services
• To appropriately accommodate Council staff and Councillors
• To generate income and capital receipts from its assets.

In practice , the drivers which help shape options and guide decision-making are as diverse as the assets themselves, but can be summarised as:

Internal

• SCC Corporate Priorities
• Climate Emergency Declaration
• SCC Transformation Programmes
• Financial Pressures and available funding – capital and revenue

External

• Changing Population
• Local Economic conditions.

Policy

• Central Government policy
• Closer working with partners and other service providers.

For all Suffolk County Council land and property information, please see enclosed link to the website which includes a list of vacant buildings.  Vacant buildings may not be for sale or rent and, depending on circumstances may be re-used by the organisation.

Contact details

For further advice and information, contact the Corporate Property team at Corporateproperty@suffolk.gov.uk.