According to a recent study 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 stabilize finances.
Increasing Fiscal Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in the UK stated that 60% of local authorities are planning to sell assets to meet the rising costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Local governments have previously faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and land to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition said that a significant number of councils seeking to generate funds from a quick sale of assets marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of local leaders stated they would focus on restructuring services and utilising financial reserves to manage increasing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England said its property management strategy featured the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in another town to raise 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will additionally be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Financial Pressures
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of authorities will have to increase local levies next April to cover the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council explained it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “There are population challenges which will continue 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 very challenging.”
National Trends and Forecasts
A survey of regional authorities recently further found local finances being strained by the growing number of young people and adults needing Send support.
The County Councils Network projected that council deficits will reach £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 next year after a white paper outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls
According to the latest indices of deprivation (IMD) for English councils, several key cities members were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“Although only one key city is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures highlights the extent of difficulties confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” said Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face difficult decisions around which essential services to fund, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the last year, the study found.
