According to a latest survey of municipal councils, UK councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to stabilize finances.
Increasing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK stated that six out of ten of councils are intending to sell assets to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for selling public land and land to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to raise vital cash from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
The group said that a high proportion of authorities attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would focus on restructuring services and using financial reserves to weather increasing financial challenges.”
Detailed Examples of Proposed Disposals
One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and commercial properties owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the plan.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Strains
This research of councils in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that more than 70% of councils will need to raise local levies next spring to cover the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority explained it will proceed with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches 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 strains 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.”
National Trends and Forecasts
A survey of regional authorities this week further found council budgets being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals needing Send support.
The County Councils Network said that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper outlining those reforms has been postponed.
Deprivation and Funding Gaps
According to the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for UK local authorities, many participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in the country.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.
“Although only one key city is in the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the worst-off 20% of the nation. The figures highlights the scale of challenges confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the analysis added.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a fair and sustainable funding system that accounts for and addresses the real levels of disadvantage and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, councils will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the last year, the survey revealed.
