Based on a new survey of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.
Growing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in England reported that 60% of councils are planning to dispose of properties to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of playing fields and land to shore up 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 raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “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 fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Proposed Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a community venue in another town to generate £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and commercial properties owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for Medway council, will additionally be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Wider Financial Pressures
This research of councils in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to increase local levies next April to cover the growing cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
Medway council explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these take time to deliver both improved services and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “There are population challenges which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
National Trends and Forecasts
A survey of county councils recently further found local finances being strained by the growing number of children and adults needing Send support.
The County Councils Network projected that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to manage rising needs.
Government officials have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a white paper setting out those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls
According to the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many key cities members were included in the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“Although only a single urban area is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The data highlights the extent of challenges confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face difficult decisions around which essential services to fund, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the study revealed.
