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Based on a latest survey of municipal councils, English councils are planning to sell social clubs, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.

Growing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales

The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in the UK reported that six out of ten of councils are planning to dispose of properties to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.

Local governments have in the past come under fire for selling public land and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.

The group said that a significant number of councils seeking 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 prioritise restructuring services and using financial reserves to manage increasing fiscal pressures.”

Detailed Examples of Planned Disposals

Medway Council in Kent announced its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.

• A local golf course and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be sold under the strategy.

Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures

This research of councils in the key cities group, which covers several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of councils will need to increase council taxes next April to address the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.

The authority said it will proceed with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.

“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to achieve both improved services and cost efficiency,” stated a council leader.

He added: “There are population challenges which will continue to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”

National Trends and Forecasts

Research of county councils recently also found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of children and adults 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 struggle to manage rising needs.

Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper outlining those changes has been postponed.

Disadvantage and Funding Shortfalls

Based on the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many 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 most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.

“Although only one key city is in the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The data highlights the scale of challenges facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report added.

“Local government leaders have been clear about the need for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” said a council leader.

“Without this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their residents.”

One in five of local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the last year, the survey revealed.