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According to a new poll of municipal councils, English councils are planning to sell community centers, sports centres, and retail spaces as they rely on a rapid disposal of properties to stabilize finances.

Growing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales

The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in the UK stated that 60% of councils are intending to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.

Councils have previously faced criticism for disposing of public land and open spaces to shore up their finances, but they contend they must proceed to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.

The group said that a significant number of councils attempting to generate funds from a quick sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would focus on service redesigns and using financial reserves to weather growing fiscal pressures.”

Detailed Examples of Planned Sales

Medway Council in Kent announced its property management strategy featured the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.

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

Local Levy Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures

This research of councils in the key cities group, which includes Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, further found that over seven in ten of councils will need to raise local levies next spring to cover the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of homelessness, and a persistent housing shortage.

Medway council explained it will proceed with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.

“We are adopting innovative approaches but certain measures take time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.

He added: “We face population challenges which will continue to add to the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”

Countrywide Patterns and Forecasts

A survey of county councils recently also found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of young people and adults requiring Send support.

The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will reach £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to manage rising needs.

Ministers have put off planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a white paper setting out those reforms has been postponed.

Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls

Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, several key cities members were included in the most deprived 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,” noted the report.

“Although only one key city is in the top 10 for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The data underscores the extent of difficulties confronting municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the analysis concluded.

“Council officials have been clear about the need for a fair and sustainable funding system that reflects and addresses the real levels of deprivation and need,” said Michael Mordey.

“Without this, local authorities will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to fund, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”

A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened care services in the past 12 months, the study found.