🔗 Share this article

According to a latest study of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.

Increasing Financial Pressures Drive Asset Sales

The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in the UK stated that 60% of councils are planning to dispose of properties to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.

Councils have in the past faced criticism for selling playing fields and land to support their finances, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.

The group said that a significant number of authorities attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would focus on service redesigns and using savings to weather increasing financial challenges.”

Detailed Examples of Planned Sales

One local authority in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan included the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.

• A local golf course and business parks owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.

Local Levy Rises and Wider Financial Strains

The survey of councils in the coalition, which covers several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of authorities will have to increase local levies next April to cover the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.

Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.

“We are taking innovative approaches but certain measures take time to deliver both improved services and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.

He added: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”

National Trends and Forecasts

A survey of regional authorities recently further found local finances being stretched by the growing number of children and older individuals needing Send support.

The County Councils Network projected that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.

Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a policy document setting out those reforms has been postponed.

Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls

According to the most recent indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering English councils, several key cities members were included in the most disadvantaged in England.

• “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.

“While only a single urban area is among the top 10 for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures underscores the extent of challenges confronting municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.

“Local government leaders have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.

“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their residents.”

One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the survey found.