Based on a recent survey of local authorities, English councils are planning to sell community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.
Growing Fiscal Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England stated that 60% of councils are intending to sell assets 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 land to support their budgets, but they contend they must proceed to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
The group noted that a significant number of authorities attempting to raise money from a quick sale of holdings marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on restructuring services and using savings to manage growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Disposals
One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in another town to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will additionally be disposed of under the plan.
Local Levy Increases and Broader Financial Strains
The survey of local authorities in the coalition, which includes several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of councils will have to raise local levies next April to address the growing 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, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these take time to deliver both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to add to 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.”
Countrywide Trends and Forecasts
Research of county councils recently further found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of young people and adults needing special educational assistance.
A network of councils projected that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to manage increased demand.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until next year after a policy document setting out those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many participating urban areas were among the most deprived in England.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“Although only one key city is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures highlights the extent of challenges facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” stated a council leader.
“Lacking this, councils will continue to face difficult decisions around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the past 12 months, the survey revealed.
