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According to a new survey of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.

Growing Financial Challenges Prompt Asset Sales

The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK reported that six out of ten of local authorities are planning to sell assets to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.

Councils have previously come under fire for selling playing fields and land to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.

This coalition said that a high proportion of councils seeking to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings marked “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials stated they would focus on service redesigns and using savings to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”

Specific Examples of Planned Sales

One local authority in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a retail complex in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to generate £20m over five years.

• Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for Medway council, will additionally be sold under the strategy.

Local Levy Rises and Broader Financial Strains

The survey of councils in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of councils will have to increase council taxes next spring to cover the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.

Medway council said it will proceed with asset sales after steep rises 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 financial savings,” stated Vince Maple.

He added: “There are population challenges which will persist to add to the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”

Countrywide Patterns and Projections

A survey of county councils recently also found council budgets being stretched by the increasing figures of children and adults needing Send support.

The County Councils Network projected that local shortfalls will reach £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to manage increased demand.

Government officials have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until the coming year after a policy document setting out those reforms was recently delayed.

Disadvantage and Funding Gaps

Based on the latest indices of deprivation (IMD) covering English councils, several participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in England.

• “Participating urban centers like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the report.

“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived 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 challenges facing local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the analysis added.

“Council officials have been explicit about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and need,” stated a council leader.

“Lacking this, local authorities will persist to face impossible choices around which vital provisions 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.