Based on a new poll of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to stabilize finances.
Growing Fiscal Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in England reported that 60% of councils are intending to dispose of properties to meet the rising costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of playing fields and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a significant number of authorities seeking to raise money from a quick sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders stated they would prioritise service redesigns and using savings to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Sales
One local authority in southeast England said its property management strategy included the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the coalition, which includes several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of authorities will need to raise local levies next April to address the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of homelessness, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
The authority explained it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are adopting innovative approaches but certain measures require time to achieve both improved services and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.
He added: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase the strains 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 Trends and Projections
A survey of regional authorities this week also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of children and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network said that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage rising needs.
Ministers have put off planned reforms to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Gaps
Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) for English councils, many key cities members were included in the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“While only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures underscores the extent of difficulties confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the analysis added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable financial structure that accounts for and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and demand,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, councils will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to cut, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of councils have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the survey found.
