According to a latest poll of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Pressures Drive Asset Sales
A coalition of councils for major urban areas in England reported that six out of ten of councils are intending to dispose of properties to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past come under fire for selling playing fields and land to support their budgets, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.
The group noted that a high proportion of councils seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders stated they would focus on restructuring services and using financial reserves to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Cases of Planned Sales
One local authority in southeast England announced its property management strategy included the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- Gillingham golf club and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will additionally be sold under the strategy.
Local Levy Rises and Broader Financial Pressures
The survey of councils in the coalition, which covers several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of councils will have to increase local levies next spring to cover the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.
Medway council said it will proceed with asset sales 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 taking creative strategies but certain measures take time to deliver both improved services and financial savings,” stated a council leader.
He continued: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to increase the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, 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 county councils this week further found local finances being stretched by the growing number of young people and older individuals needing Send support.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will hit 4.4 billion pounds a year by 2029, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper setting out those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls
Based on the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering English councils, many participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the latest deprivation indices,” said the report.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the extent of challenges confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the analysis concluded.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that accounts for and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and need,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the survey found.
