According to a recent study of local authorities, UK councils are preparing to sell community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Fiscal Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England stated that six out of ten of councils are planning to sell assets to meet the rising costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of public land and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition said that a high proportion of authorities attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders stated they would focus on restructuring services and using financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Examples of Proposed Sales
One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in Rochester to generate £20m over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Fiscal Pressures
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of councils will have to increase council taxes next spring to cover the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
The authority said it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures take time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” stated Vince Maple.
He continued: “There are population challenges which will persist to add to the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Patterns and Projections
A survey of county councils this week further found local finances being strained by the increasing figures of young people and adults requiring special educational assistance.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they struggle to manage increased demand.
Government officials have delayed planned reforms to the Send system until next year after a white paper setting out those reforms was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls
According to the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many key cities members were included in the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“Although only one key city is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The figures highlights the scale of challenges facing local leaders across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and need,” stated a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the study revealed.
