Based on a recent poll of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to offload social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they rely on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.
Growing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England stated that 60% of local authorities are planning to dispose of properties to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for selling public land and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must proceed to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition noted that a significant number of authorities seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings marked “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials said they would focus on restructuring services and utilising financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”
Specific Examples of Planned Sales
One local authority in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Strains
The survey of councils in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of authorities will have to raise council taxes next April to address the rising cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority said it will press ahead 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 adopting innovative approaches but some of these require time to deliver both better provisions and financial savings,” said a council leader.
He added: “There are population challenges which will persist to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Projections
A survey of county councils recently also found local finances being stretched by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will reach £4.4bn 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 next year after a policy document outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Gaps
According to the most recent deprivation measures (IMD) for English councils, many key cities members were included in the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the report.
“While only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Without this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the study revealed.
