Based on a recent poll of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK stated that 60% of local authorities are planning to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past faced criticism for selling playing fields and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
The group noted that a high proportion of authorities attempting to raise money from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on restructuring services and utilising financial reserves to weather increasing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Sales
One local authority in Kent announced its property management strategy featured the disposal of a retail complex in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Local Levy Rises and Broader Fiscal Pressures
This research of councils in the coalition, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of councils will have to increase council taxes next April to address the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
Medway council said it will proceed with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting creative strategies but certain measures take time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” said a council leader.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
A survey of county councils recently further found local finances being strained by the growing number of young people and older individuals needing special educational assistance.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a policy document outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls
According to the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, several 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 IMD measures,” noted the study.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The data underscores the extent of difficulties facing local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the analysis concluded.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” said Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, councils will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the survey found.
