According to a recent poll of municipal councils, English councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.
Growing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in the UK reported that six out of ten of local authorities are intending to sell assets to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and open spaces to support their finances, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.
The group said that a significant number of councils attempting to raise money from a fire sale of holdings marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders stated they would focus on restructuring services and using savings to manage increasing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Proposed Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England said its property management strategy featured the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in another town to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will also be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Financial Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of councils will have to raise local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
Medway council explained it will proceed with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but certain measures take time to achieve both improved services and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He added: “We face population challenges which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
Research of county councils this week also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of children and adults requiring Send support.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Government officials have put off scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a white paper setting out those reforms was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls
According to the latest deprivation measures (IMD) for English councils, several participating urban areas were included in the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“Although only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The data highlights the extent of difficulties confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the analysis added.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to fund, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the survey revealed.
