Based on a new survey of local authorities, English councils are preparing to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of assets to balance the books.
Growing Fiscal Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for major urban areas in the UK reported that six out of ten of councils are intending to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of public land and land to shore up their finances, but they argue they must proceed to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of authorities attempting to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would focus on service redesigns and using savings to manage growing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Proposed Sales
One local authority in southeast England said its property management strategy included the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to generate 20 million pounds over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Wider Fiscal Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of councils will have to increase local levies next April to address the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.
Medway council said it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures take time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He added: “There are population challenges which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Trends and Projections
Research of county councils this week also found council budgets being stretched by the increasing figures of children and older individuals requiring Send support.
A network of councils said that council deficits will reach £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to manage increased demand.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the Send system until next year after a policy document outlining those reforms has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the most recent deprivation measures (IMD) covering UK local authorities, many key cities members were among the most deprived in England.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted 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 the nation. The data highlights the scale of challenges confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report added.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable financial structure that accounts for and responds to the real levels of deprivation and need,” said Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the survey revealed.
