According to a new poll of local authorities, UK councils are preparing to offload community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Growing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in England stated that six out of ten of councils are intending to sell assets to cover the rising costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of public land and land to support their finances, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.
The group noted that a significant number of councils attempting to generate funds from a quick sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to manage increasing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Planned Sales
One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a retail complex in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will additionally be sold under the plan.
Local Levy Increases and Broader Financial Pressures
This research of councils in the key cities group, which covers several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of councils will need to increase council taxes next spring to cover the growing cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are adopting creative strategies but certain measures require time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will persist 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 extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Projections
Research of county councils this week further found council budgets being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals needing Send support.
A network of councils projected that local shortfalls will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.
Government officials have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper outlining those changes has been postponed.
Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many key cities members were among the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the report.
“While only one key city is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The figures highlights the scale of difficulties confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the analysis concluded.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses 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 fund, and which to cut, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the survey found.
