According to a latest study of municipal councils, UK councils are planning to offload social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Growing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for second-tier cities in England reported that 60% of councils are planning to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of public land and land to support their finances, but they argue they must proceed to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
This coalition noted that a significant number of councils seeking to raise money from a quick sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on restructuring services and using savings to manage increasing financial challenges.”
Specific Cases of Planned Sales
Medway Council in Kent said its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will also be sold under the plan.
Local Levy Rises and Wider Fiscal Strains
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of councils will need to raise council taxes next spring to address the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
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, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking innovative approaches but certain measures require time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.
He added: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Patterns and Projections
Research of county councils this week also found local finances being stretched by the growing number of young people and adults needing Send support.
The County Councils Network projected 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 delayed planned reforms to the Send system until next year after a white paper outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls
According to the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering English councils, several key cities members were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Member cities like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“While only a single urban area is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The figures underscores the extent of difficulties facing municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the analysis added.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” stated a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the study found.
