Local authorities across the UK often manage networks of community facilities: halls, meeting rooms, sports pavilions, arts spaces, and more. These are valuable, high-demand assets. However, for many councils, outdated booking and administration processes are quietly limiting how much value those assets deliver.
Councils already own the spaces, and community demand for them is strong. A simpler booking process is often all that stands between the two. In other words, the hard part (building the venues) is already done. The councils that have successfully modernised their booking processes are seeing measurable results, and it's one of the more satisfying projects to lead. In this article, we'd like to show you how.
Where the opportunity sits
Most council facilities run on manual processes: phone calls, email chains, spreadsheets, and physical diaries. This creates a lot of admin for staff, data on how well utilised a venue is can be patchy or absent, and security deposit liabilities can build up unchecked. In a nutshell, spaces that could be generating income and activity simply aren't visible to the community groups that would use them.
None of this reflects on the teams involved. Most have been making manual systems work through skill and sheer persistence for years. They deserve tools that work as hard as they do.
For business improvement leads, this is a real opportunity. The change is relatively low-risk and delivers the kind of measurable outcomes that make a strong business case. If your facilities team are quietly holding the booking spreadsheet together, this article is for you.
What councils are seeing
We’ve seen the results first hand, from councils and community venues including Wyre Forest District Council, Birmingham Town Hall, Bonny Downs Community Association, Stretford Public Hall, and Dorothy Parkes Community Centre who have moved to online booking with the SpacetoCo platform. Their results map directly onto the metrics that matter most, and they're the kind of wins teams enjoy reporting:
- “Bookings enquiries, availability checks, and confirmations have all become self-serve. We’ve increased our bookings revenue by 22% in the first 3 months of going live with SpacetoCo. I also have a lot more time now to now focus on delivery of events and upselling.” – Frankie Coker, Bookings Manager, Stretford Public Hall
- Real-time booking data make it easy to confidently report on utilisation rates, revenue figures, and booking trends. “You will double your hirings and reduce your booking workload by 90%.” – Jim Chapman, Venue Manager, Hornsley Cricket Club
- “We’re excited to open up more of our spaces so they can be used and enjoyed by a wider range of people. We can make booking quicker, easier and more accessible, helping attract more activity into our buildings and supporting new opportunities for local businesses and community groups” – Faye Parrett, Director of Commercial Services, Wyre Forest District Council
- “I’m no longer chasing the money. We were spending over 4 hours on invoicing a week, but now we don’t even have to think about it” – Frankie Coker, Bookings Manager, Stretford Public Hall
Jessica Davies, UK Lead at SpacetoCo, explains: "These spaces play such an important role in building healthy, connected communities. Demand for them is only growing, but access often starts online. By moving to online booking, organisations are removing barriers, making better use of their spaces, and helping more local people benefit from everything happening within them."
Building the business case
Making the business case for moving to online bookings is often straightforward. The inputs are easily measurable: staff hours spent on booking administration, current utilisation rates, revenue per venue, and outstanding bond liabilities. Outputs often include: time saved, increased utilisation, revenue growth, and a balance sheet that balances at the end of each month. Our team can help you gauge realistic estimates based on your current data if you need a hand.
On average, our council partners are reporting up to 80% reductions in admin time, along with significant increases in bookings and bookings revenue. These are outcomes that hold up to scrutiny from a CEO or finance director. If you've been waiting for a digital project where the numbers do most of the talking, this is a good one!
Jeremy Hurst, Co-Founder of SpacetoCo, describes what the shift looks like in practice: "What we're seeing is a shift from a booking system to a complete space-sharing ecosystem. When barriers are removed, spaces naturally become more active. At SpacetoCo, we're proud to be supporting that change. Our next-generation booking system features powerful debtor management that proactively drives debt removal, alongside a robust marketplace that ensures improved venue discoverability, ultimately driving higher utilisation of community assets."
What good implementation looks like
In our experience, three things determine the success of moving venue bookings online:
- Integration. Check how any solution connects with your existing finance and CRM systems. A well-connected platform is far easier to run and report from.
- Change management. Teams that have run bookings manually for years need proactive support to adopt new workflows. Plan for this early and the transition goes smoothly. Your team might even enjoy it.
- Measurement from day one. Capture baseline data before go-live so you can evidence the outcomes afterwards. Your future self, mid-way through writing a leadership report, will thank you.
Better still, you won't be doing it alone. On vendor choice, look for a platform designed with councils and community organisations in mind, not one adapted from a generic booking tool. Sector-specific requirements around public access and procurement compliance are easier with a partner who has already worked through them with councils like yours.
Meet SpacetoCo at DigiGov 2026
SpacetoCo will be exhibiting at DigiGov in September. The team works with councils and community organisations across the UK on exactly these challenges. If you're building a business case or evaluating solutions for community facility management, come and find us. We're a friendly bunch, we love talking about halls, pavilions, and everything in between, and we'll happily share what's worked for councils like yours. Bring your trickiest booking headache; there's a good chance we've seen it before.
Register your interest ahead of the event
SpacetoCo is a space-hire platform developed alongside councils and community organisations. It combines marketplace discoverability, online booking, automated payments, and clear management reporting to help local authorities get more from their community facility networks.
Jessica Davies, UK Lead, SpacetoCo
