According to a recent survey of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to offload social clubs, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK reported that six out of ten of local authorities are intending to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past faced criticism for selling public land and land to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition said that a high proportion of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of municipal officials said they would prioritise restructuring services and using savings to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a retail complex in Rainham and a community venue in another town to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Increases and Wider Financial Strains
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of councils will need to raise council taxes next April to cover the growing cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
The authority explained it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting creative strategies but some of these require time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He added: “We face population challenges which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Trends and Projections
A survey of county councils this week further found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of young people and adults requiring special educational assistance.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will reach £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage rising needs.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Gaps
Based on the latest deprivation measures (IMD) covering English councils, many participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “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 report.
“Although only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures underscores the scale of challenges facing local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face difficult decisions around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of councils have cut or compromised care services in the past 12 months, the study found.
