According to a recent poll of municipal councils, English councils are planning to offload social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of assets to balance the books.
Growing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for major urban areas in England stated that 60% of local authorities are intending to sell assets to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have in the past faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
The group noted that a high proportion of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of local leaders stated they would focus on restructuring services and utilising financial reserves to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Cases of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in Kent announced its property management strategy featured the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the coalition, which includes several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of councils will need to increase local levies next spring to address the rising cost of essential services, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.
The authority explained it will press ahead with asset sales 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 creative strategies but some of these take time to achieve both improved services and financial savings,” said a council leader.
He added: “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 extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Patterns and Forecasts
Research of county councils recently also found local finances being strained by the growing number of young people and older individuals requiring Send support.
A network of councils projected that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper setting out those reforms was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many participating urban areas were among the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The figures highlights the scale of difficulties facing local leaders across key cities in the next twelve months,” the analysis added.
“Council officials have been clear about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that reflects and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and need,” stated a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will persist 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 local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the last year, the survey revealed.
