According to a latest poll of local authorities, English councils are preparing to offload social clubs, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.
Increasing Fiscal Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for major urban areas 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.
Councils have in the past 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 property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition said that a significant number of authorities attempting to raise money from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on service redesigns and using financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Examples of Proposed Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England said its property management strategy featured the sale of a retail complex in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to generate £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in two English counties, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will also be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Financial Strains
The survey of local authorities in the coalition, which covers several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of authorities will have to raise local levies next spring to address the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
Medway council said it will proceed with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these take time to achieve both improved services and cost efficiency,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “We face population challenges which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Patterns and Projections
Research of regional authorities recently also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of children and adults needing special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to manage increased demand.
Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper outlining those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
According to the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for UK local authorities, several participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the report.
“While only one key city is in the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures underscores the scale of challenges confronting local leaders 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 funding system that accounts for and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
One in five of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the last year, the survey revealed.
