Based on a new study of local authorities, English councils are preparing to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in England stated that six out of ten of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have previously come under fire for selling public land and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group noted that a significant number of councils seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of assets marked “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on restructuring services and using financial reserves to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Sales
Medway Council in southeast England announced its property management strategy featured the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Local Levy Increases and Wider Financial Strains
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that more than 70% of councils will need to raise local levies next spring to address the rising cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these take time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities this week also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of children and older individuals needing Send support.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Government officials have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls
Based on the most recent deprivation measures (IMD) covering English councils, several participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the top 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 countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The figures underscores the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that reflects and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” stated a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the last year, the survey found.
