According to a new study of municipal councils, English councils are planning to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they rely on a fire sale of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Pressures Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England reported that six out of ten of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have previously come under fire for disposing of playing fields and open spaces to support their finances, but they argue they must proceed to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a high proportion of councils seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders stated they would prioritise restructuring services and utilising savings to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a retail complex in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- A local golf course 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 Wider Fiscal Strains
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that more than 70% of authorities will need to increase local levies next April to address the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority said it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures take time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He added: “There are population challenges which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Patterns and Forecasts
A survey of regional authorities recently further found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network said that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper setting out those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Funding Gaps
According to the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for UK local authorities, many key cities members were included in the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The figures underscores the extent of challenges confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the analysis added.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, councils will persist to face difficult decisions around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the last year, the study found.