Based on a new poll of local authorities, English councils are planning to sell community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they rely on a rapid disposal of assets to stabilize finances.
Growing Fiscal Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in the UK stated that 60% of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for disposing of public land and open spaces to support their budgets, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a significant number of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials stated they would focus on service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Proposed Sales
One local authority in southeast England announced its property management strategy included the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in another town to generate 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and commercial properties owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for Medway council, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Fiscal Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of authorities will need to increase local levies next spring to cover the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
The authority said it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” said a council leader.
He added: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Trends and Projections
A survey of regional authorities this week also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals requiring Send support.
The County Councils Network said that council deficits will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, 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 setting out those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Gaps
Based on the most recent deprivation measures (IMD) for English councils, several participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” noted the report.
“While only a single urban area is in the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the scale of difficulties confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the analysis added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” said Michael Mordey.
“Without this, councils will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the survey revealed.