According to a new survey of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.
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 meet the rising costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have previously faced criticism for disposing of public land and open spaces to support their budgets, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a high proportion of councils seeking to generate funds from a quick sale of holdings marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders stated they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising savings to manage growing financial challenges.”
Specific Examples of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a social club 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 the authority, will also be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Broader Fiscal 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 need to increase local levies next spring to address the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of homelessness, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
Medway council said it will press ahead with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to achieve both improved services and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “We face population challenges which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities recently further found local finances being strained by the increasing figures of young people and adults needing Send support.
A network of councils said that council deficits will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the Send system until the coming year after a policy document outlining those changes has been postponed.
Deprivation and Financial Gaps
Based on the latest deprivation measures (IMD) covering UK local authorities, several key cities members were included in the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Member cities like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“Although only one key city is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The data underscores the scale of challenges facing local leaders across key cities in the next twelve months,” the analysis concluded.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that accounts for and responds to the real levels of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.
“Without this, councils will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised social care provision in the past 12 months, the study found.
