Based on a latest poll of municipal councils, English councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.
Growing Fiscal Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England reported that 60% of councils are planning to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have previously come under fire for selling playing fields and land to support their finances, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of councils 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 said they would prioritise restructuring services and using savings to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Proposed Sales
One local authority in southeast England announced its property management strategy included the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in Rochester to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Local Levy Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures
This research of councils in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of authorities will have to increase local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority said it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these require time to achieve both improved services and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He added: “There are demographic pressures which will continue to add to the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Patterns and Projections
A survey of county councils recently also found local finances being stretched by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals needing Send support.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to manage increased demand.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the Send system until next year after a white paper outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls
Based on the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering English councils, several participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Member cities like several major towns rank in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“Although only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures underscores the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across key cities in the coming year,” the report added.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and need,” stated 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 detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised social care provision in the past 12 months, the study found.
