According to a new poll of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in the UK reported that 60% of councils are intending to sell assets to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for selling playing fields and land to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition said that a high proportion of authorities seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”
Specific Examples of Planned Sales
Medway Council in Kent announced its property management strategy featured the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in another town to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in two English counties, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Local Levy Rises and Broader Financial Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the coalition, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of councils will have to increase council taxes next April to address the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He added: “We face population challenges which will continue to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Trends and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities this week further found council budgets being strained by the growing number of children and adults needing Send support.
The County Councils Network projected that local shortfalls will reach £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
According to the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, several key cities members were included in the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns place in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the extent of difficulties confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report added.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and responds to the real levels of deprivation and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“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 councils have cut or compromised care services in the last year, the study revealed.
