According to a new poll of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.
Growing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in the UK stated that 60% of councils are planning to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for selling public land and open spaces to support their finances, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials stated they would prioritise service redesigns and using financial reserves to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Local Levy Rises and Wider Financial Strains
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to increase council taxes next April to cover the rising cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority explained it will press ahead with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but certain measures require time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated a council leader.
He added: “There are population challenges which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Projections
A survey of regional authorities this week further found council budgets being stretched by the increasing figures of children and adults requiring special educational assistance.
A network of councils projected that local shortfalls will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Government officials have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document setting out those reforms has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls
Based on the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, several participating urban areas were included in the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the study.
“While only one key city is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The data underscores the scale of challenges facing local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the report added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and demand,” said a council leader.
“Without this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to fund, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the study revealed.
