According to a new study of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of assets to balance the books.
Growing Fiscal Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in the UK reported that 60% of local authorities are planning to dispose of properties to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have previously come under fire for selling playing fields and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they argue they must proceed to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of authorities attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials said they would prioritise restructuring services and using savings to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Proposed Sales
Medway Council in Kent said its property management strategy featured the sale of a retail complex in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will additionally be disposed of under the plan.
Local Levy Rises and Wider Financial Strains
The survey of local authorities in the coalition, which includes several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of authorities will have to raise council taxes next April to address the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
Medway council explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to deliver both better provisions and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He added: “We face population challenges which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities this week further found local finances being stretched by the increasing figures of children and older individuals requiring 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 grapple to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper setting out those reforms has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls
According to the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering English councils, many key cities members were included in the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the report.
“While only a single urban area is among 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 underscores the extent of challenges confronting municipal officials across key cities in the coming year,” the report added.
“Council officials have been clear about the need for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and need,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the survey revealed.
