🔗 Share this article

According to a new study of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.

Growing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales

A coalition of councils for major urban areas in England reported that 60% of councils are intending to sell assets to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.

Councils have in the past come under fire for selling public land and open spaces to support their budgets, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.

The group noted that a significant number of authorities seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials said they would prioritise restructuring services and utilising financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”

Specific Cases of Planned Sales

One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to raise £20m over the next half-decade.

• Gillingham golf club and commercial properties owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be sold under the plan.

Council Tax Increases and Wider Financial Strains

This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers several urban centers, also found that over seven in ten of councils will need to increase council taxes next spring to cover the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.

The authority said it will press ahead with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.

“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.

He added: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”

National Patterns and Projections

A survey of county councils recently also found council budgets being stretched by the increasing figures of children and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.

A network of councils projected that local shortfalls will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to manage increased demand.

Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until next year after a policy document setting out those changes was recently delayed.

Deprivation and Funding Gaps

Based on the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, several participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in the country.

• “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,” noted the study.

“While only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the extent of challenges confronting municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.

“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that reflects and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.

“Without this, councils will continue to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the detriment of their residents.”

A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the last year, the survey found.