Based on a latest study of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in England reported that 60% of councils are planning to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have in the past come under fire for selling public land and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they argue they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a high proportion of councils attempting to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on restructuring services and using financial reserves to manage growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Cases of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England announced its property management strategy included the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in another town to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in two English counties, which all generate rent for Medway council, will additionally be disposed of under the plan.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures
This research of councils in the coalition, which includes several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of councils will need to raise council taxes next April to cover the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority said 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 short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these require time to achieve both improved services and financial savings,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “There are demographic pressures which will continue to add to the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
National Trends and Forecasts
A survey of county councils recently further found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of children and older individuals requiring Send support.
A network of councils projected that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to manage rising needs.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a policy document setting out those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls
According to the most recent indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, many participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in England.
- “Member cities like several major towns rank in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” noted the report.
“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The data highlights the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and demand,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face difficult decisions around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the survey found.
