According to a recent poll of local authorities, UK councils are planning to sell social clubs, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they rely on a rapid disposal of assets to stabilize finances.
Growing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in the UK reported that 60% of councils are intending to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have previously come under fire for disposing of playing fields and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or face insolvency.
The group noted that a high proportion of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising savings to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Sales
Medway Council in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in another town to generate £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and commercial properties owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Local Levy Increases and Wider Fiscal Pressures
This research of councils in the key cities group, which covers several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of councils will have to increase council taxes next April to address the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.
The authority explained it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are adopting creative strategies but certain measures require time to deliver both better provisions and financial savings,” stated Vince Maple.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
Countrywide Trends and Projections
A survey of county councils recently also found local finances being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network said that council deficits will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they struggle to cope with 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 changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Gaps
According to the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many key cities members were among 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 report.
“While only a single urban area is among the top 10 for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The figures highlights the scale of challenges confronting municipal officials across key cities in the coming year,” the analysis concluded.
“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and addresses the actual extent of deprivation and need,” stated a council leader.
“Without this, councils will continue to face difficult decisions around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the study found.
