According to a new poll of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to offload social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in the UK stated that six out of ten of councils are planning to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of public land and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
The group said that a high proportion of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of local leaders said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising savings to manage growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Proposed Sales
Medway Council in Kent said its property management strategy featured the sale of a retail complex in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in two English counties, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be sold under the strategy.
Local Levy Increases and Broader Fiscal Strains
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that more than 70% of authorities will have to increase local levies next spring to address the rising cost of essential services, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
The authority said it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting innovative approaches but some of these take time to deliver both improved services and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.
He continued: “We face population challenges which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Patterns and Forecasts
Research of county councils recently also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of young people and adults needing special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network projected that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until next year after a policy document outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
Based on the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, many key cities members were among the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the study.
“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures highlights the extent of difficulties confronting local leaders across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report added.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and need,” said Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the survey found.
