According to a recent survey of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to offload social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they rely on a fire sale of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
A coalition of councils representing major urban areas in England stated that 60% of councils are planning to dispose of properties to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of playing fields and land to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group said that a high proportion of authorities seeking to raise money from a fire sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to manage growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Proposed Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England said its property management strategy featured the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Rises and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of councils will have to raise council taxes next April to cover the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority said it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “There are demographic pressures which will continue to add to the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Projections
Research of regional authorities recently also found local finances being strained by the increasing figures of young people and adults 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 struggle to manage increased demand.
Ministers have put off planned reforms to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper setting out those reforms was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Gaps
According to the latest deprivation measures (IMD) for UK local authorities, 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 place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“While only one key city is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The data highlights the scale of difficulties facing local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the analysis added.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and need,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have cut or compromised social care provision in the past 12 months, the study found.
