According to a new poll of municipal councils, English councils are planning to offload community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of assets to balance the books.
Growing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in England reported that six out of ten of councils are intending to dispose of properties to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for selling public land and open spaces to support their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group said that a high proportion of authorities attempting to raise money from a quick sale of holdings marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would focus on restructuring services and utilising savings to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Sales
Medway Council in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in another town to generate 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Financial Strains
This research of councils in the coalition, which covers several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of councils will have to raise council taxes next April to address the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
Medway council explained it will press ahead with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to add to the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities recently further found council budgets being stretched by the increasing figures of children and adults requiring Send support.
A network of councils said that council deficits will reach £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a white paper outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Gaps
Based on the latest deprivation measures (IMD) covering UK local authorities, many participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged 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,” said the report.
“Although only one key city is in the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the scale of difficulties facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report added.
“Council officials have been clear about the need for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and responds to the real levels of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the study found.
