According to a new study of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils representing major urban areas in England stated that six out of ten of local authorities are planning to dispose of properties to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for disposing of public land and land to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group noted that a high proportion of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials stated they would focus on service redesigns and using savings to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Cases of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for the authority, will additionally be disposed of under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the coalition, which includes several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of councils will have to raise local levies next spring to cover the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
The authority explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting innovative approaches but some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Patterns and Forecasts
A survey of county councils this week further found local finances being stretched by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals needing Send support.
A network of councils said that council deficits will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a white paper outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Gaps
Based on the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for UK local authorities, many key cities members were among the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Member cities like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.
“Although only one key city is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The data highlights the scale of challenges facing local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the analysis added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and addresses the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“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 local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the survey found.
