According to a latest study of local authorities, English councils are planning to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in the UK reported that 60% of local authorities are planning to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Local governments have in the past come under fire for selling playing fields and open spaces to support their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
The group said that a significant number of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change 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.”
Specific Cases of Proposed Sales
Medway Council in Kent said its property management strategy included the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in another town to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of councils will have to raise local levies next spring to address the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels 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 youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these require time to deliver both improved services and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.
He added: “We face population challenges which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Trends and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities this week further found local finances being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals requiring Send support.
The County Councils Network projected that council deficits will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document setting out those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Funding Gaps
According to the latest indices of deprivation (IMD) for UK local authorities, several key cities members were among the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the most deprived 30 nationally 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 England. The data underscores the extent of difficulties confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that reflects and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the survey found.
