According to a latest poll of municipal councils, UK councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for second-tier cities in England reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for selling playing fields and land to support their finances, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would focus on restructuring services and using financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”
Specific Cases of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England announced its property management strategy featured the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Broader Financial Strains
The survey of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of councils will need to increase local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of core provisions, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.
Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting innovative approaches but some of these take time to achieve both improved services and cost efficiency,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
National Trends and Projections
Research of regional authorities this week also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.
A network of councils projected that council deficits will reach £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a policy document setting out those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls
Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) for English councils, many key cities members were included in the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.
“Although only one key city is among the top 10 for disadvantaged communities nationally, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data underscores the extent of difficulties facing local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report added.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable financial structure that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will continue to face difficult decisions around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of councils have cut or compromised care services in the last year, the study found.
