According to a recent poll of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload social clubs, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Growing Fiscal Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for major urban areas in England reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to sell assets to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and land to support their budgets, but they contend they must proceed to raise vital cash from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition noted that a significant number of councils attempting to generate funds from a quick sale of holdings represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials stated they would prioritise service redesigns and using financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”
Specific Examples of Proposed Sales
Medway Council in southeast England said its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a community venue in another town to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Fiscal Pressures
This research of local authorities in the coalition, which includes several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of authorities will have to raise local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council explained it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.
He added: “We face demographic pressures which will persist to add to the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities this week further found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of children and adults needing special educational assistance.
A network of councils said that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper outlining those reforms has been postponed.
Deprivation and Funding Gaps
Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) covering English councils, many key cities members were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“Although only one key city is in the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The figures highlights the scale of challenges facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that reflects and addresses the real levels of deprivation and need,” stated a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face difficult decisions around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the study found.
