According to a recent poll of municipal councils, 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 Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils representing major urban areas in the UK stated that 60% of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for selling playing fields and open spaces to support their finances, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group said that a high proportion of councils seeking to generate funds from a quick sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of local leaders stated they would focus on restructuring services and using financial reserves to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in southeast England announced its property management strategy featured the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will additionally be disposed of under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Fiscal Pressures
This research of councils in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of authorities will have to increase local levies next April to address the rising cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
Medway council explained it will press ahead with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these take time to achieve both improved services and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “There are population challenges which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Trends and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities recently further found local finances being strained by the increasing figures of children and older individuals requiring Send support.
A network of councils projected that council deficits will reach £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Government officials have delayed planned reforms to the Send system until the coming year after a policy document setting out those reforms was recently delayed.
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 several major towns place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The data highlights the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across key cities in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and need,” said Michael Mordey.
“Without this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have cut or compromised care services in the past 12 months, the study revealed.
