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According to a new poll of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they rely on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.

Growing Fiscal Pressures Prompt Asset Sales

The Key Cities Group representing second-tier cities in England reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.

Councils have previously faced criticism for selling playing fields and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.

The group said that a high proportion of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders stated they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising savings to weather increasing financial challenges.”

Detailed Examples of Planned Disposals

Medway Council in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan included the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over five years.

• Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for the authority, will additionally be sold under the plan.

Council Tax Rises and Wider Financial Pressures

This research of councils in the coalition, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of councils will need to increase council taxes next spring to address the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of housing insecurity, and a longstanding housing shortage.

Medway council explained 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 temporary accommodation.

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

He continued: “There are population challenges which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”

Countrywide Patterns and Forecasts

Research of regional authorities recently also found council budgets being stretched by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.

A network of councils projected that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they grapple 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 Shortfalls

Based on the latest deprivation measures (IMD) for UK local authorities, many participating urban areas 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 IMD measures,” said the report.

“While 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 difficulties facing local leaders across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.

“Local government leaders have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and need,” stated Michael Mordey.

“Lacking this, councils will continue 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 last year, the survey found.