According to a latest survey of local authorities, English councils are preparing to offload social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Growing Fiscal Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
A coalition of councils representing major urban areas in the UK stated that 60% of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously faced criticism for selling public land and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must continue to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of councils seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of assets represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of local leaders stated they would focus on service redesigns and using financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Sales
One local authority in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a retail complex in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for the authority, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Increases and Wider Financial Pressures
This research of councils in the coalition, which covers several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of councils will need to increase council taxes next spring to address the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.
Medway council said it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these take time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
National Patterns and Projections
Research of regional authorities this week also found council budgets being strained by the growing number of children and adults needing special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network projected that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have put off planned reforms to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper setting out those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls
According to the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, many participating urban areas were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the report.
“While only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The data highlights the scale of challenges confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the analysis added.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and demand,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the survey found.