According to a new poll of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Fiscal Pressures Prompt Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in the UK reported that 60% of councils are planning to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.
Councils have previously come under fire for disposing of public land and land to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must continue to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.
This coalition noted that a high proportion of authorities attempting to raise money from a quick sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of local leaders stated they would focus on service redesigns and utilising savings to manage growing fiscal pressures.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Disposals
One local authority in Kent said its property management strategy included the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to generate 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and business parks owned in two English counties, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Wider Financial Strains
This research of councils in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of authorities will need to raise local levies next April to cover the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.
The authority explained it will press ahead with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but certain measures require time to deliver both better provisions and cost efficiency,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “We face population challenges which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
National Patterns and Projections
Research of county councils recently further found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of children and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.
A network of councils said that local shortfalls will reach £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.
Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document outlining those reforms was recently delayed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
According to the most recent indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, several key cities members were among the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 across the country under the latest IMD measures,” noted the study.
“Although only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, urban areas are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures underscores the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report concluded.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and responds to the real levels of deprivation and need,” said a council leader.
“Lacking this, councils will persist to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the detriment of their residents.”
A fifth of councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the past 12 months, the survey found.
