According to a latest poll of local authorities, English councils are planning to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they rely on a rapid disposal of assets to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in England reported that six out of ten of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for disposing of public land and land to support their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition said that a high proportion of councils attempting to raise money from a fire sale of holdings marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of municipal officials said they would prioritise service redesigns and using savings to weather increasing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in Kent said its property management strategy featured the disposal of a retail complex in Rainham and a social club in another town to generate £20m over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Financial Strains
This research of councils in the key cities group, which covers several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to increase local levies next spring to address the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
The authority said it will proceed with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are adopting creative strategies but some of these take time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He added: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to add to the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
National Patterns and Projections
Research of county councils recently also found local finances being strained by the growing number of children and adults needing Send support.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage increased demand.
Government officials have put off scheduled changes to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper outlining those changes has been postponed.
Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering English councils, several participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Member cities 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 ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures underscores the extent of difficulties confronting municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the analysis added.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the study found.
