According to a latest poll of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to offload community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Growing Fiscal Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in England reported that six out of ten of local authorities are planning to dispose of properties to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for selling playing fields and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
This coalition noted that a significant number of authorities seeking to generate funds from a quick sale of assets marked “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of municipal officials said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to manage growing financial challenges.”
Specific Examples of Proposed Disposals
Medway Council in Kent announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of councils will have to increase council taxes next spring to cover the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
Medway council explained it will proceed with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of youth support, 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 improved services and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face population challenges which will persist to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Trends and Projections
A survey of county councils recently further found council budgets being stretched by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals requiring Send support.
The County Councils Network said that council deficits will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage increased demand.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
According to the latest deprivation measures (IMD) for UK local authorities, many key cities members were included in the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Member cities like several major towns rank in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The figures underscores the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across key cities in the coming year,” the analysis concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that reflects and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.
“Without this, councils will continue to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the study revealed.
