According to a new study of local authorities, UK councils are planning to sell community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Growing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in England reported that 60% of councils are planning to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of playing fields and land to support their budgets, but they contend they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group said that a significant number of councils attempting to raise money from a quick sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders stated they would focus on service redesigns and using financial reserves to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Cases of Proposed Sales
Medway Council in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a retail complex in Rainham and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and business parks held in two English counties, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be sold under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Wider Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, also found that more than 70% of authorities will need to increase local levies next spring to address the rising cost of essential services, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council explained it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to deliver both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated a council leader.
He added: “There are demographic pressures which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Projections
Research of county councils this week also found local finances being stretched by the growing number of children and older individuals needing special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network said that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage rising needs.
Government officials have put off scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a white paper setting out those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Gaps
Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, several participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the study.
“Although only one key city is in the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods nationally, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures highlights the scale of challenges facing municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” said Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, councils will persist to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
One in five of councils have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the survey found.
