Based on a recent survey of municipal councils, English councils are planning to sell social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Growing Financial Pressures Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for second-tier cities in the UK stated that six out of ten of councils are planning to dispose of properties to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have in the past faced criticism for disposing of public land and land to shore up their finances, but they argue they must proceed to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
The group said that a high proportion of authorities seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders stated they would focus on service redesigns and using savings to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Examples of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to generate 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of councils will have to increase council taxes next April to cover the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.
The authority explained it will press ahead with asset sales 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 creative strategies but some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He added: “There are demographic pressures which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
Research of county councils this week further found local finances being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals needing special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network said that council deficits will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to manage increased demand.
Government officials have delayed scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until next year after a white paper setting out those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
According to the most recent indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The data highlights the extent of difficulties facing local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that accounts for and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and need,” stated 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 communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the last year, the study found.
