According to a new poll of local authorities, English councils are planning to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of assets to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for major urban areas in England stated that 60% of local authorities are planning to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for selling public land and land to shore up their finances, but they contend they must proceed to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of councils seeking to raise money from a quick sale of holdings represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to manage growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Sales
One local authority in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Strains
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, further 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 housing shortage.
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, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but certain measures require time to deliver both better provisions and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He added: “We face population challenges which will persist to increase 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.”
Countrywide Trends and Projections
A survey of regional authorities this week also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of children and adults requiring Send support.
A network of councils said that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to manage increased demand.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document outlining those reforms has been postponed.
Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls
According to the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) covering English councils, many key cities members were among the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the scale of difficulties facing municipal officials across key cities in the coming year,” the report added.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Without this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which essential services to fund, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the study revealed.
