Based on a new survey of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they rely on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past faced criticism for selling public land and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group said that a significant number of authorities seeking to raise money from a quick sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on restructuring services and utilising savings to weather increasing financial challenges.”
Specific Examples of Planned Sales
One local authority in southeast England announced its property management strategy featured the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in another town to raise 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Financial Pressures
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of authorities will have to raise council taxes next spring to address the rising cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
Medway council said it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting creative strategies but some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will persist to increase the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Trends and Projections
Research of county councils recently further found council budgets being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals needing special educational assistance.
A network of councils projected that council deficits will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper outlining those reforms has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
According to the most recent deprivation measures (IMD) covering UK local authorities, many participating urban areas were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Member cities like several major towns rank in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the extent of difficulties facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the analysis concluded.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
One in five of councils have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the study found.
