According to a recent survey of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK reported that 60% of councils are intending to sell assets to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for selling public land and land to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group said that a high proportion of authorities attempting to generate funds from a quick sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials said they would focus on service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to manage increasing financial challenges.”
Specific Examples of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in Kent said its property management strategy included the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in another town to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Financial Strains
The survey of local authorities in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that more than 70% of authorities will need to raise local levies next spring to address the growing cost of essential services, higher levels of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority said it will press ahead with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting creative strategies but certain measures require time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” stated Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will persist to add to the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Trends and Forecasts
A survey of regional authorities recently further found local finances being stretched by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals requiring Send support.
The County Councils Network projected that local shortfalls will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the Send system until next year after a white paper setting out those reforms has been postponed.
Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls
According to the latest indices of deprivation (IMD) covering English councils, several participating urban areas were included in the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“Although only a single urban area is in the top 10 for disadvantaged communities countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures highlights the scale of challenges confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the analysis added.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable financial structure that accounts for and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” said Michael Mordey.
“Without this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to cut, to the detriment of their communities.”
One in five of councils have cut or compromised care services in the last year, the survey revealed.
