According to a new study of local authorities, English councils are preparing to sell social clubs, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Growing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in England stated that 60% of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for selling playing fields and land to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.
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 stated they would focus on restructuring services and utilising savings to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in southeast England said its property management strategy included the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in another town to generate £20m over five years.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will additionally be sold under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Broader Financial Strains
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of councils will have to raise local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.
The authority explained it will press ahead with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these take time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated Vince Maple.
He continued: “There are population challenges which will persist to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
Countrywide Trends and Projections
Research of regional authorities this week further found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of children and adults requiring special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network projected that council deficits will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to manage increased demand.
Government officials have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper setting out those changes has been postponed.
Deprivation and Financial Gaps
According to the most recent indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, several key cities members were among the most deprived in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.
“While only a single urban area is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures underscores the scale of challenges facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report added.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and addresses the real levels of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the last year, the survey found.
