According to a latest survey of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to stabilize finances.
Increasing Fiscal Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in the UK stated that six out of ten of councils are planning to dispose of properties to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously faced criticism for selling playing fields and land to support their finances, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a significant number of authorities seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in Kent said its property management strategy featured the sale of a retail complex in Rainham and a social club in another town to raise £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in two English counties, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will also be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Strains
This research of councils in the coalition, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of councils will need to raise council taxes next April to address the growing cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
The authority said it will press ahead with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting innovative approaches but some of these require time to deliver both better provisions and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
National Trends and Forecasts
A survey of regional authorities this week also found council budgets being strained by the growing number of children and adults requiring Send support.
The County Councils Network projected that council deficits will reach £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Government officials have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until next year after a white paper outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) for English councils, several key cities members were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Member cities like several major towns place in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“Although only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The data underscores the extent of difficulties facing local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and demand,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the survey revealed.
