According to a recent study of municipal councils, English councils are planning to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they rely on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.
Growing Financial Pressures Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils representing second-tier cities in England reported that six out of ten of councils are planning to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have previously faced criticism for selling playing fields and land to shore up their finances, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition said that a significant number of authorities seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials stated they would prioritise service redesigns and using financial reserves to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Sales
Medway Council in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to generate £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will additionally be sold under the strategy.
Local Levy Increases and Wider Financial Strains
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, also found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to raise council taxes next April to cover the rising cost of essential services, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting creative strategies but certain measures require time to deliver both better provisions and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He added: “We face demographic pressures which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Patterns and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities recently further found local finances being stretched by the growing number of young people and adults needing Send support.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to manage increased demand.
Government officials have delayed planned reforms to the Send system until the coming year after a policy document outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
Based on the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering English councils, several key cities members were among the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” noted the study.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The figures highlights the extent of difficulties facing local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and demand,” said a council leader.
“Without this, councils will persist to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the study found.
