According to a recent poll of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.
Growing Fiscal Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK reported that 60% of local authorities are planning to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have in the past come under fire for disposing of public land and land to support their budgets, but they argue 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 marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials stated they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising savings to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in another town to generate 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will also be sold under the plan.
Local Levy Rises and Broader Financial Pressures
This research of local authorities in the coalition, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of councils will have to increase local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
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 short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures take time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.
He added: “There are population challenges which will persist to increase the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”
National Trends and Forecasts
Research of county councils recently further found local finances being stretched by the increasing figures of children and adults needing Send support.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper outlining those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
Based on the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in England.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.
“While only a single urban area is in the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures underscores the scale of difficulties facing local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the analysis concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that reflects and addresses the real levels of deprivation and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, councils will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the survey found.
