Based on a new study of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to balance the books.
Increasing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in the UK reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to cover the rising costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have previously faced criticism for selling public land and land to support their budgets, but they argue they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
The group said that a significant number of councils seeking to raise money from a quick sale of holdings represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on restructuring services and using financial reserves to manage growing financial challenges.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Sales
One local authority in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Financial Pressures
This research of councils in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of authorities will have to increase local levies next April to cover the growing cost of essential services, higher levels of homelessness, and a longstanding 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, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures take time to deliver both improved services and cost efficiency,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Trends and Projections
A survey of county councils recently also found council budgets being stretched by the increasing figures of children and adults requiring special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network projected that local shortfalls will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a white paper outlining those reforms has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls
Based on the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, several participating urban areas were among the most deprived in England.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“Although only one key city is among the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures underscores the scale of challenges facing local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and addresses the actual extent of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities 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 local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the past 12 months, the study found.
