Based on a latest poll of local authorities, 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.
Increasing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for major urban areas in the UK reported that six out of ten of councils are intending to sell assets to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have in the past faced criticism for selling playing fields and land to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a high proportion of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising savings to weather increasing financial challenges.”
Specific Cases of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in Kent announced its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a retail complex in Rainham and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and commercial properties owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be sold under the strategy.
Local Levy Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures
This research of councils in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of councils will need to raise council taxes next spring to address the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
The authority explained it will proceed 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 some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “We face demographic pressures which will persist to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Trends and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities this week further found local finances being stretched by the increasing figures of children and older individuals requiring Send support.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they grapple to manage increased demand.
Government officials have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls
Based on the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, many 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 top 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The figures highlights the scale of challenges confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and need,” stated a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the past 12 months, the study found.
