According to a recent poll of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to stabilize finances.
Increasing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in the UK reported that 60% of councils are intending to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have previously come under fire for disposing of playing fields and land to shore up their finances, but they argue they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group noted that a significant number of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of local leaders stated they would focus on restructuring services and using financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in Kent announced its asset disposal plan included the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to generate £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be sold under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Broader Fiscal Strains
This research of local authorities in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of authorities will have to raise local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting innovative approaches but some of these require time to deliver both better provisions and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will continue to add to the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Projections
Research of county councils this week also found local finances being strained by the increasing figures of young people and adults needing special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to manage increased demand.
Ministers have put off planned reforms to the Send system until next year after a white paper setting out those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Funding Gaps
According to the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering English councils, many participating urban areas were included in the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the report.
“While only one key city is in the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The figures underscores the scale of challenges confronting local leaders across key cities in the next twelve months,” the analysis added.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that accounts for and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and demand,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to fund, and which to cut, to the detriment of their communities.”
One in five of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the last year, the survey revealed.
