According to a recent survey of municipal councils, English councils are planning to sell social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Growing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in the UK stated that 60% of councils 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 playing fields and open spaces to support their budgets, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition said that a significant number of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Examples of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in Kent announced its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to raise £20m over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in two English counties, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Wider Fiscal Strains
This research of local authorities in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that more than 70% of authorities will need to raise council taxes next spring to cover the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
Medway council said it will proceed with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are adopting creative strategies but some of these take time to deliver both improved services and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will persist 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 very challenging.”
Countrywide Trends and Forecasts
A survey of regional authorities recently also found local finances being stretched by the growing number of young people and older individuals requiring Send support.
A network of councils said that council deficits will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage rising needs.
Government officials have delayed planned reforms to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper outlining those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls
According to the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, several participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The data underscores the scale of difficulties facing local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the analysis added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” stated a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the study found.
