Based on a latest survey of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in England stated that 60% of local authorities are intending to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past faced criticism for selling playing fields and land to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of councils attempting to raise money from a quick sale of holdings marked “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to weather increasing financial challenges.”
Detailed Cases of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a retail complex in Rainham and a community venue in another town to raise 20 million pounds over five years.
- 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 Increases and Broader Fiscal Strains
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of councils will have to raise local levies next April to address the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
The authority said it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are adopting innovative approaches but some of these require time to achieve both improved services and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.
He added: “There are population challenges which will continue to add to the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Trends and Forecasts
Research of county councils recently also found local finances being stretched by the growing number of children and older individuals needing Send support.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will reach £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage increased demand.
Ministers have put off planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document setting out those reforms has been postponed.
Deprivation and Financial Shortfalls
Based on the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many key cities members were among the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Member cities like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the study.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures highlights the scale of difficulties facing municipal officials across key cities in the coming year,” the analysis concluded.
“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable financial structure that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” said Michael Mordey.
“Without this, local authorities will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to fund, and which to cut, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the survey found.
