Based on a new poll of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils representing major urban areas in England stated that six out of ten of local authorities are planning to sell assets to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for disposing of public land and land to support their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group said that a significant number of authorities seeking to raise money from a fire sale of assets represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of local leaders said they would focus on restructuring services and using savings to manage increasing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Proposed Sales
Medway Council in southeast England said its asset disposal plan included the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will additionally be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Increases and Wider Financial Strains
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to raise local levies next spring to address the growing cost of essential services, higher levels of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “We face population challenges which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Patterns and Projections
Research of county councils recently further found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of children and older individuals requiring Send support.
A network of councils projected that local shortfalls will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Gaps
According to the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many participating urban areas were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.
“Although only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures underscores the scale of difficulties confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report added.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and responds to the real levels 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 reduce, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
One in five of councils have cut or compromised care services in the past 12 months, the survey revealed.
