Who owns Lancashire?
When the councils are abolished in 2028, everything they own has to go somewhere. Every school, depot, library, park, office, car park and scrap of roadside land passes to one of four new authorities. This map lets you see that estate, filtered by who owns it today and by the unitary that will inherit it.
How property moves in reorganisation
When a council is abolished, it does not sell up and hand over the cash. Its land, buildings, rights and debts pass automatically to the new authority that replaces it, by operation of law, with no need to sell or re-register each site one by one. That machinery sits under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 and the transfer regulations made with it. So the four new Lancashire councils inherit the combined estate of the old ones. East Lancashire, for example, will take on what the county council, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle and Rossendale hold across that area today.
Not everything moves. Only county and district council property passes to the new unitaries. Town and parish councils carry on as they are, and the fire and ambulance services, the police, the NHS, academy schools and national bodies are all separate: reorganising the councils does not touch what they own. This map lets you turn each type of owner on and off, and filter to just what transfers in 2028, so you can see what each new council actually inherits and what stays put.
What other reorganisations have taught us
- Selling before the lights go out. An outgoing council could sell assets or run down its reserves in its final months and leave the new authority short. Government guards against this: under section 24 of the 2007 Act it can order that any outgoing council must get written consent before selling land above a set value, signing large contracts, or drawing down reserves. This power has been used in every recent reorganisation, from Cumbria to Surrey, and Lancashire will be no different.
- Dividing a county four ways is harder than merging into one. Assets, debt and the local government pension fund all have to be shared out between the successors. When Cumbria split in two in 2023 the pension arrangements were left dangerously late, and that has become the standing warning to every county since. Lancashire's split is into four, larger and more complex, so getting this right matters more here than almost anywhere.
- Out-of-date registers. Councils are required to publish what they own, but the lists are often years old and incomplete. If a council cannot say clearly what it holds, residents cannot hold it to account and the new authority inherits the confusion. A map like this only works because the public data does, so where it is thin, that is part of the story.
One thing to be clear about: the recent council bankruptcies you may have read about, Woking, Thurrock and Croydon, were caused by risky commercial property gambles, not by reorganisation. They are a separate warning about how public money and public assets can be lost. Reorganisation, done properly, is a chance to get a proper grip on what Lancashire owns. This map is a start.
What each new council inherits
Every county and district council title, grouped into the four unitaries that take over in 2028. These are the registered property and land holdings each new council starts life owning, before any are sold, shared or written off. Town and parish councils, the NHS, police, fire and national bodies keep their own estates and are not counted here.
The map
Everything starts grouped into clusters so the whole county is readable at a glance. Zoom in, or narrow with the filters, and the individual sites appear. Each colour is a different kind of public owner. Click any marker for what it is, who holds it, and which new council inherits it.
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