According to a new poll of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to offload social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they rely on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.
Growing Fiscal Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK reported that six out of ten of councils are intending to sell assets to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of public land and land to support their budgets, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition noted that a significant number of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of local leaders stated they would focus on restructuring services and using financial reserves to manage growing financial challenges.”
Specific Cases of Proposed Sales
One local authority in Kent said its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Financial Strains
This research of councils in the key cities group, which covers several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of authorities will have to raise local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.
The authority explained it will press ahead with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to achieve both improved services and financial savings,” said a council leader.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to add to the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Trends and Forecasts
Research of county councils this week further found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of young people and adults needing special educational assistance.
A network of councils said that council deficits will reach £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage increased demand.
Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper setting out those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) covering UK local authorities, many key cities members were included in the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“Although only one key city is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, urban areas are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The data highlights the scale of challenges facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the analysis added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and demand,” stated a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the survey found.
