According to a latest survey of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.
Growing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils representing second-tier cities in England reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for selling playing fields and open spaces to support their finances, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a high proportion of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets marked “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials said they would prioritise service redesigns and using financial reserves to manage growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Sales
One local authority in Kent announced its property management strategy included the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in another town to generate 20 million pounds over five years.
- A local golf course and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Increases and Broader Fiscal Strains
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of councils will have to raise council taxes next April to address the growing cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council explained it will press ahead with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are adopting creative strategies but some of these take time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” said a council leader.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
National Trends and Projections
Research of county councils recently also found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of children and older individuals needing special educational assistance.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper 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.
- “Member cities like several major towns place in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“Although only a single urban area is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The figures underscores the scale of challenges confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the analysis added.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and responds to the real levels of deprivation and demand,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face difficult decisions around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the last year, the study revealed.
