According to a latest survey of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload social clubs, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Growing Fiscal Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England stated that six out of ten of councils are intending to sell assets to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past faced criticism for selling playing fields and land to support their budgets, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.
The group noted that a significant number of authorities seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings marked “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would focus on restructuring services and utilising financial reserves to weather increasing financial challenges.”
Specific Cases of Planned Disposals
One local authority in Kent announced its property management strategy included the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and commercial properties owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Fiscal Pressures
This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, also found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to increase local levies next spring to address the rising cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
The authority said it will press ahead with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of children services, 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 improved services and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.
He added: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Projections
Research of regional authorities this week further found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals requiring Send support.
The County Councils Network projected that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to manage increased demand.
Government officials have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document outlining those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls
According to the most recent deprivation measures (IMD) for UK local authorities, many key cities members were included in the most deprived in the country.
- “Member cities like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.
“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures highlights the extent of difficulties facing municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report added.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that reflects and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and need,” stated a council leader.
“Without this, councils will persist to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the survey found.
