According to a new survey of local authorities, English councils are preparing to sell social clubs, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in England reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Local governments have previously come under fire for disposing of public land and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group said that a high proportion of authorities attempting to raise money from a quick sale of assets represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of local leaders said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising savings to weather growing financial challenges.”
Specific Examples of Planned Sales
Medway Council in Kent announced its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in Rochester to generate 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Increases and Wider Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of councils will need to increase local levies next April to cover the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority said it will press ahead with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these take time to achieve both improved services and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Patterns and Projections
Research of regional authorities this week further found local finances being strained by the increasing figures of children and adults needing special educational assistance.
A network of councils projected that council deficits will reach £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage rising needs.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until next year after a white paper setting out those reforms has been postponed.
Deprivation and Financial Gaps
Based on the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, several participating urban areas were among the most deprived in England.
- “Member cities like several major towns place in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“Although only one key city is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The data underscores the extent of challenges confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” said Michael Mordey.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the study revealed.
