Based on a new survey of local authorities, English councils are planning to sell social clubs, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they bet on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for major urban areas in the UK stated that 60% of local authorities are planning to dispose of properties to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have in the past come under fire for disposing of public land and open spaces to support their budgets, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
The group noted that a high proportion of authorities attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to manage increasing financial challenges.”
Specific Cases of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will additionally be sold under the plan.
Local Levy Increases and Broader Fiscal Strains
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which covers several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of authorities will have to increase council taxes next April to cover the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
The authority said it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these take time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
National Trends and Projections
A survey of county councils this week also found local finances being strained by the increasing figures of children and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.
A network of councils said that council deficits will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Government officials have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until next year after a policy document setting out those reforms has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
According to the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for UK local authorities, several key cities members were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the study.
“Although only one key city is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures underscores the scale of difficulties facing local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and addresses the actual extent of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the last year, the study found.
