According to a new survey of municipal councils, English councils are planning to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they bet on a rapid disposal of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for selling public land and land to shore up their finances, but they argue they must proceed to raise vital cash from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
The group noted that a high proportion of authorities seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of local leaders stated they would prioritise restructuring services and using savings to manage increasing financial challenges.”
Specific Cases of Planned Sales
One local authority in Kent announced its property management strategy included 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 owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of councils will need to raise local levies next April to cover the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
The authority explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but certain measures require time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Projections
A survey of county councils recently further found council budgets being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.
A network of councils projected that local shortfalls will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, several key cities members were among the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The data highlights the scale of difficulties facing local leaders across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report added.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” said Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to cut, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the last year, the study found.
