According to a recent study of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.
Growing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in the UK reported that 60% of councils are planning to dispose of properties to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past faced criticism for disposing of public land and land to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition noted that a significant number of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of local leaders stated they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising savings to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England said its property management strategy featured the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to raise £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of authorities will have to increase council taxes next spring to cover the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.
The authority said it will proceed with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “We face population challenges which will persist to add to the strains 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 Forecasts
A survey of county councils recently further found local finances being stretched by the growing number of children and adults requiring Send support.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will reach £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to manage rising needs.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a policy document setting out those reforms was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls
According to the latest indices of deprivation (IMD) covering English councils, many participating urban areas were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“Although only one key city is among the top 10 for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The figures underscores the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the analysis concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” stated a council leader.
“Without this, councils will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the last year, the survey found.
