According to a new poll of local authorities, English councils are preparing to offload social clubs, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for major urban areas in England stated that six out of ten of councils are planning to dispose of properties to meet the rising costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have in the past faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and land to support their budgets, but they argue they must continue to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a significant number of authorities seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of municipal officials said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to weather increasing financial challenges.”
Specific Examples of Proposed Sales
Medway Council in southeast England announced its property management strategy featured the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in Rochester to generate £20m over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Strains
This research of councils in the coalition, which includes several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of authorities will have to increase council taxes next spring to address the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these take time to deliver both better provisions and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “There are population challenges which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
National Patterns and Projections
A survey of county councils recently further found local finances being stretched by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals needing Send support.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Government officials have put off planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until next year after a white paper setting out those changes was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for UK local authorities, many participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” noted the report.
“Although only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the extent of difficulties confronting local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and responds to the real levels of deprivation and need,” stated a council leader.
“Without this, councils will persist to face difficult decisions around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the survey found.
