According to a new survey of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in the UK reported that 60% of local authorities are planning to dispose of properties to meet the escalating costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have previously faced criticism for disposing of public land and land to support their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
The group said that a significant number of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials said they would focus on service redesigns and utilising savings to weather growing financial challenges.”
Specific Examples of Proposed Sales
One local authority in southeast England announced its property management strategy featured the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in another town to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Wider Financial Pressures
The survey of councils in the coalition, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of councils will have to raise local levies next April to cover the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales 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 creative strategies but some of these take time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Patterns and Projections
A survey of county councils this week further found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of young people and older individuals needing Send support.
A network of councils said that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to manage rising needs.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until next year after a policy document outlining those changes has been postponed.
Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls
According to the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, many participating urban areas were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the report.
“While only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the scale of difficulties facing local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and addresses the real levels of deprivation and need,” stated a council leader.
“Lacking this, councils will continue to face difficult decisions around which essential services to fund, and which to cut, to the detriment of their communities.”
One in five of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the study revealed.
