🔗 Share this article

According to a recent survey of municipal councils, UK councils are preparing to sell community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.

Increasing Fiscal Challenges Drive Asset Sales

A coalition of councils representing major urban areas in England reported that 60% of councils are planning to dispose of properties to cover the rising costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.

Councils have previously faced criticism for selling playing fields and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they argue they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or face insolvency.

This coalition noted that a high proportion of councils seeking to raise money from a quick sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would prioritise restructuring services and using financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”

Specific Examples of Planned Disposals

Medway Council in Kent said its property management strategy included the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to raise £20m over the next half-decade.

• A local golf course and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the plan.

Council Tax Rises and Broader Financial Strains

The survey of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of authorities will have to raise local levies next April to address the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.

Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and short-term housing.

“We are adopting innovative approaches but some of these require time to achieve both improved services and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.

He added: “There are population challenges which will continue to add to the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”

National Patterns and Projections

Research of county councils this week also found local finances being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals needing Send support.

The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will reach £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 next year after a policy document setting out those reforms was recently delayed.

Disadvantage and Financial Gaps

Based on the latest deprivation measures (IMD) covering UK local authorities, several participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in the country.

• “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.

“While only one key city is in the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities countrywide, urban areas are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The data underscores the scale of difficulties facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.

“Local government leaders have been explicit about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses the real levels of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.

“Without this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to fund, and which to cut, to the detriment of their communities.”

A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the study revealed.