According to a latest survey of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell social clubs, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.
Increasing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England stated that six out of ten of councils are planning to sell assets to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have in the past come under fire for selling public land and land to shore up their finances, but they argue they must continue to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
The group said that a high proportion of authorities attempting to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders stated they would focus on service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Examples of Planned Sales
Medway Council in southeast England said its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a retail complex in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will additionally be sold under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Wider Fiscal Pressures
This research of local authorities 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 cover the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority explained it will proceed with property disposals after sharp increases 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 achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face population challenges which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Forecasts
A survey of regional authorities recently also found local finances being stretched by the growing number of children and adults needing special educational assistance.
A network of councils said that council deficits will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper setting out those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, several participating urban areas were included in the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“While only a single urban area is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The data underscores the extent of challenges confronting local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the analysis concluded.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and addresses the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, councils will persist to face difficult decisions around which essential services to fund, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the survey revealed.
