According to a recent poll of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to stabilize finances.
Increasing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to sell assets to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for selling public land and land to shore up their finances, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group noted that a high proportion of authorities attempting to raise money from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would focus on service redesigns and utilising savings to manage increasing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Examples of Proposed Disposals
Medway Council in Kent announced its asset disposal plan included the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to generate 20 million pounds over five years.
- A local golf course and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of authorities will need to raise local levies next spring to cover the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
Medway council said it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking innovative approaches but certain measures require time to deliver both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Patterns and Projections
A survey of county councils recently also found council budgets being stretched by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals needing Send support.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will reach £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.
Government officials have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a white paper setting out those reforms has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) covering English councils, several participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.
“Although only a single urban area is in the top 10 for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures highlights the scale of difficulties facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report added.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a equitable and lasting financial structure that reflects and addresses the actual extent of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the survey found.
