According to a latest survey of local authorities, English councils are planning to sell social clubs, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England stated that 60% of councils are planning to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have in the past come under fire for selling public land and open spaces to support their finances, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a significant number of councils attempting to raise money from a fire sale of assets marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders stated they would prioritise service redesigns and using savings to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be sold under the strategy.
Local Levy Increases and Broader Financial Strains
The survey of councils in the coalition, which covers several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to raise local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority said 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 short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these take time to achieve both improved services and cost efficiency,” stated a council leader.
He added: “There are population challenges which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Trends and Forecasts
A survey of county councils recently also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of young people and adults requiring special educational assistance.
A network of councils projected that local shortfalls will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Ministers 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
According to the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) for English councils, several participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in the country.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The data highlights the extent of challenges facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” stated a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the study revealed.
