According to a new study of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Fiscal 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 meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have in the past come under fire for selling public land and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
The group noted that a significant number of authorities attempting to raise money from a fire sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders stated they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising savings to weather increasing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Disposals
One local authority in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Wider Financial Pressures
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to increase council taxes next April to address the rising cost of core provisions, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.
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, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these require time to deliver both improved services and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to add to the strains 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 Projections
A survey of county councils this week further found local finances being strained by the increasing figures of children and older individuals needing Send support.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until next year after a white paper outlining those reforms has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the latest 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 top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“Although only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The figures highlights the extent of challenges confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and need,” stated a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the survey revealed.
