According to a recent survey of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Growing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in England reported that 60% of councils are planning to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have previously faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of councils attempting to raise money from a fire sale of holdings marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of local leaders said they would prioritise service redesigns and using financial reserves to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Examples of Planned Sales
One local authority in Kent said its property management strategy featured the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be sold under the plan.
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 more than 70% of authorities will need to increase local levies next April to address the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority 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 certain measures take time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” stated Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Patterns and Projections
A survey of regional authorities this week also found council budgets being stretched by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals needing special educational assistance.
A network of councils projected that council deficits will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they struggle to manage rising needs.
Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls
According to the latest deprivation measures (IMD) covering 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 IMD measures,” said the report.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures highlights the scale of challenges facing municipal officials across key cities in the coming year,” the report added.
“Council officials have been clear about the need for a equitable and lasting financial structure that accounts for and addresses the real levels of deprivation and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the survey found.
