According to a recent poll of local authorities, UK councils are planning to sell social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Growing Financial Pressures Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for major urban areas in England reported that six out of ten of councils are intending to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for disposing of public land and open spaces to support their finances, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group said that a high proportion of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials stated they would focus on service redesigns and using financial reserves to manage growing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in Kent said its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a retail complex in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks held in two English counties, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Fiscal Strains
This research of local authorities in the coalition, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of councils will need to raise local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
The authority explained it will proceed with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these require time to deliver both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face population challenges which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
A survey of county councils recently further found local finances being strained by the increasing figures of children and adults requiring special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network projected that council deficits will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper outlining those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
According to the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) covering English councils, many key cities members were included in the most deprived in the country.
- “Member cities like several major towns rank in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The data highlights the scale of challenges facing local leaders across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and responds to the real levels of deprivation and need,” stated a council leader.
“Lacking 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 councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the study found.
