🔗 Share this article

Based on a new study of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.

Growing Fiscal Challenges Prompt Asset Sales

The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England reported that six out of ten of local authorities are planning to dispose of properties to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.

Local governments have previously faced criticism for selling public land and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.

The group noted that a high proportion of authorities attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of municipal officials said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising savings to manage growing fiscal pressures.”

Specific Cases of Planned Sales

Medway Council in Kent announced its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over five years.

• Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in two English counties, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.

Council Tax Rises and Wider Fiscal Pressures

This research of local authorities in the coalition, which covers several urban centers, also found that over seven in ten of councils will need to raise council taxes next spring to cover the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.

The authority said it will press ahead with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.

“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures take time to deliver both improved services and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.

He added: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to increase the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”

National Patterns and Projections

A survey of county councils this week further found council budgets being strained by the growing number of young people and older individuals needing special educational assistance.

A network of councils projected that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.

Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document setting out those reforms has been postponed.

Deprivation and Financial Gaps

Based on the latest indices of deprivation (IMD) for English councils, many key cities members were among the most disadvantaged in England.

• “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.

“While only a single urban area is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The figures highlights the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the analysis concluded.

“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” said a council leader.

“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to cut, to the detriment of their communities.”

A fifth of councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the past 12 months, the study revealed.