According to a recent survey of municipal councils, English councils are planning to sell community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.
Growing Fiscal Challenges Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for second-tier cities in the UK stated that 60% of councils are planning to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have previously faced criticism for selling playing fields 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 said that a high proportion of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of local leaders said they would prioritise service redesigns and using financial reserves to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Planned Disposals
One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan included the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in another town to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Financial Pressures
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of councils will have to increase council taxes next April to address the rising cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
Medway council explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these take time to deliver both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face population challenges which will continue to add to the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
Research of county councils this week also found local finances being strained by the growing number of young people and adults needing Send support.
A network of councils projected that council deficits will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage rising needs.
Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls
According to the most recent deprivation measures (IMD) for UK local authorities, several participating urban areas were included in the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities countrywide, urban areas are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The data underscores the scale of challenges confronting municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that accounts for and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and demand,” stated a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of councils have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the survey found.