According to a recent poll of local authorities, UK councils are preparing to offload social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.
Growing Financial Pressures Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils representing major urban areas in England stated that six out of ten of councils are planning to dispose of properties to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
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 declare themselves bankrupt.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of councils attempting to raise money from a fire 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 manage growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Disposals
One local authority in southeast England said its property management strategy featured the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in another town to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers several urban centers, also found that over seven in ten of councils will need to increase council taxes next April to address the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
The authority said it will proceed 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 creative strategies but some of these take time to deliver both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will continue to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Projections
A survey of county councils this week further found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of children and adults needing special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.
Government officials have delayed planned reforms to the Send system until the coming year after a policy document outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls
According to the latest deprivation measures (IMD) for English councils, several key cities members were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” noted the study.
“While only one key city is in the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The data highlights the scale of difficulties confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the analysis concluded.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and responds to the real levels of deprivation and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the last year, the survey revealed.
