According to a new survey of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to offload community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of assets to balance the books.
Growing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England stated that six out of ten of local authorities are intending to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously faced criticism for selling public land and land to support their budgets, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition noted that a significant number of authorities seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of municipal officials said they would focus on service redesigns and utilising savings to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Proposed Sales
One local authority in Kent said its property management strategy included the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in another town to generate 20 million pounds over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will additionally be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Financial Pressures
The survey of councils 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 address the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.
The authority explained it will proceed with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these require time to deliver both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated Vince Maple.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to add to the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Patterns and Forecasts
Research of county councils recently further found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of young people and older individuals needing Send support.
The County Councils Network projected that council deficits will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to manage rising needs.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document setting out those reforms was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls
Based on the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, several participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the study.
“While only one key city is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures highlights the scale of difficulties facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and responds to the real levels of deprivation and need,” said Michael Mordey.
“Without this, councils will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the survey revealed.
