According to a new survey of municipal councils, UK councils are preparing to offload social clubs, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.
Growing Fiscal Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in England stated that six out of ten of councils are intending to dispose of properties to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have previously faced criticism for selling public land and open spaces to support their finances, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group said that a high proportion of authorities attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings marked “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials said they would focus on restructuring services and utilising savings to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in Kent announced its property management strategy featured the sale 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 two English counties, which all generate rent for the authority, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Financial Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that more than 70% of authorities will need to raise local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
The authority explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are adopting creative strategies but some of these take time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “We face population challenges which will persist to add to the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
A survey of county councils this week also found local finances being stretched by the increasing figures of children and adults needing special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will reach £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to manage increased demand.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the Send system until the coming year after a policy document setting out those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Funding Gaps
According to the most recent indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for UK local authorities, many participating urban areas were among the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” noted the study.
“Although only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures highlights the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across key cities in the coming year,” the analysis concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the study found.
