According to a new survey of municipal councils, English councils are planning to sell community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils representing major urban areas in the UK stated that six out of ten of local authorities are planning to sell assets to meet the rising costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Local governments have previously faced criticism for disposing of public land and open spaces to support their budgets, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.
The group said that a significant number of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials said they would prioritise restructuring services and using savings to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Planned Disposals
One local authority in Kent said its property management strategy featured the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Financial Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of councils will have to raise local levies next spring to address the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.
The authority explained it will press ahead with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are adopting creative strategies but some of these take time to deliver both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “We face population challenges which will persist to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
National Patterns and Projections
Research of regional authorities this week also found council budgets being strained by the growing number of young people and adults needing Send support.
A network of councils projected that council deficits will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until next year after a policy document setting out those changes has been postponed.
Deprivation and Funding Gaps
Based on the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering English councils, several key cities members were included in the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the top 30 nationally under the latest IMD measures,” noted the report.
“While only a single urban area is in the top 10 for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures underscores the scale of difficulties confronting local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the report added.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face difficult decisions around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of local authorities have reduced or weakened social care provision in the past 12 months, the study found.
