Based on a recent poll of local authorities, English councils are planning to sell social clubs, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they rely on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.
Growing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in the UK reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for selling public land and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition said that a significant number of authorities seeking to raise money from a fire sale of assets marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of local leaders stated they would focus on service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Planned Sales
Medway Council in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Wider Fiscal Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to raise council taxes next April to address the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council explained it will proceed 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 certain measures require time to deliver both improved services and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He added: “We face population challenges which will persist to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
Research of county councils this week also found council budgets being strained by the growing number of children 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 struggle to manage increased demand.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the Send system until next year after a white paper outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, several key cities members were included in the most deprived in England.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“While only one key city is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The figures underscores the extent of difficulties confronting municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that reflects and addresses the actual extent of deprivation and need,” stated a council leader.
“Without this, councils will persist to face difficult decisions around which essential services to fund, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the survey revealed.
