GET with the estate programme
Imagine making long-term decisions that shape entire estate portfolios, guide major investment opportunities, and influence future development programmes, without a clear view of the impact they could have. That’s the reality for most universities and healthcare institutions around the world.
With rising costs of space management and maintenance, increasing pressures to meet decarbonisation targets, and growing flexibility demands from key users, the stakes are only getting higher.
Yet the very strategies intended to guide these decisions are often confined to static documents - quickly becoming outdated, underused, and disconnected from the realities they were meant to inform.
Cue the Great Estates Toolkit (GET).
Think of it as a living, interactive strategy lab for your estate - a way to test “what if” scenarios, balance space, cost, and carbon, and make smarter, evidence-led decisions with confidence before committing to your next project.
Take Newcastle University, for example. With over 150 non-residential buildings spread across multiple campus zones, the University’s core ambition is consolidation. ‘GET’ enables the Estates team to identify underperforming areas within the portfolio, assess the impact of disposals, test the benefits of low-carbon heating systems, and reimagine teaching space requirements - turning prioritised strategic objectives into clear, deliverable actions over a 15-year timeframe.
Decisions that once relied on reactive intuition, outdated static reports, or fragmented spreadsheets can now be explored, visualised, and refined in real time throughout the life of the strategy.
We GET that it matters
Traditional estate planning is a thing of the past. GET transforms the process into a proactive, scenario-driven approach to decision-making.
The three-part framework gives users:
Clarity on the current estate
An explorative deep-dive dashboard that transforms and integrates disconnected datasets to reveal uncharted insights into a portfolio’s existing strengths and weaknesses, such as utilisation, population, age, condition, ownership, occupancy, and efficiency.
A vision for the future estate
A dynamic space calculator that supports interactive stakeholder engagement, and enables real-time testing of assumptions across space types, such as population, seat demand, utilisation, activities, hybrid working, and space standards, each contributing towards the right size and shape of a future-ready estate.
Scenario testing for strategy
A space, cost, and carbon simulator that allows estates teams to model the impact of arising implementation scenarios across the 15-year strategy period before committing to each idea, strengthening capital expenditure planning and improving senior leadership buy-in.
Beyond universities, GET is equally valuable for NHS trusts, local authorities, and any organisation managing complex estate portfolios. Its visual, interactive interface makes complex decisions more intuitive and collaborative - reducing delays and improving the quality of outcomes.
Ultimately, GET shifts the conversation from static reporting to active, continuous decision-making - it's an estate strategy that doesn’t just gather dust on the shelf.
With our help, organisations can reduce their estate footprint, lower costs, and improve environmental performance, all whilst maintaining and enhancing service quality. As part of BDP’s Advisory Services, its value extends beyond initial delivery and handover: as estates evolve and strategies adapt, GET matures alongside them - supporting smarter decisions at every stage.
Don’t just plan your estate… GET control of it.
Further Reading
Great Estates Toolkit
What would your estate look like if every square metre worked harder for students, staff, and carbon reduction?