According to a new study of municipal councils, UK councils are planning to sell social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in England stated that 60% of local authorities are intending to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have previously faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and land to shore up their finances, but they contend they must proceed to raise vital cash from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition said that a significant number of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials said they would prioritise restructuring services and utilising financial reserves to manage growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in Kent said its property management strategy featured the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in another town to generate £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and commercial properties owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Local Levy Rises and Wider Financial Pressures
This research of councils in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to increase local levies next spring to cover the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking innovative approaches but certain measures take time to achieve both improved services and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.
He added: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
A survey of county councils this week further found council budgets being strained by the growing number of young people and older individuals needing special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network projected that council deficits will reach £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to manage increased demand.
Government officials have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document setting out those reforms has been postponed.
Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls
According to the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, several key cities members were included in the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns place in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.
“While only one key city is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The data underscores the scale of difficulties confronting local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that reflects and responds to the real levels of deprivation and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the survey found.
