Based on a new study of local authorities, UK councils are preparing to offload social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.
Increasing Fiscal Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK stated that six out of ten of councils are planning to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Local governments have in the past faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and land 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 high proportion of authorities seeking to raise money from a fire sale of assets marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials said they would focus on service redesigns and using financial reserves to weather growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Proposed Disposals
Medway Council in Kent announced its asset disposal plan included the sale of a retail complex 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 the authority, will also be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Broader Financial Pressures
This research of councils in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of councils will need to increase local levies next April to address the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of housing insecurity, 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, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these take time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase 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.”
Countrywide Patterns and Projections
Research of county councils this week also found council budgets being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals requiring Send support.
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 rising needs.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until next year after a policy document setting out those changes has been postponed.
Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) covering English councils, many key cities members were among the most deprived in England.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.
“While only one key city 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 local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses the real levels of deprivation and demand,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the survey found.
