According to a new survey of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of assets to stabilize finances.
Growing Fiscal Challenges Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils representing major urban areas in England reported that 60% of local authorities are planning to dispose of properties to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for selling playing fields and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales 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 (60%) of local leaders stated they would prioritise service redesigns and using savings to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Cases of Proposed Sales
One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Wider Fiscal Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that more than 70% of councils will have to increase local levies next April to address the growing cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
The authority explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are adopting innovative approaches but some of these take time to deliver both improved services and cost efficiency,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will persist 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.”
National Patterns and Projections
Research of regional authorities recently also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.
A network of councils projected that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document setting out those changes has been postponed.
Deprivation and Funding Gaps
Based on the latest deprivation measures (IMD) for English councils, several participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in England.
- “Member cities like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.
“While only a single urban area is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, urban areas are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures highlights the scale of difficulties facing local leaders across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the survey found.
