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According to a new poll of local authorities, English councils are preparing to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they rely on a rapid disposal of assets to stabilize finances.

Increasing Financial Pressures Drive Asset Sales

A coalition of councils for major urban areas in England reported that six out of ten of councils are intending to dispose of properties to meet the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.

Local governments have in the past come under fire for selling playing fields and land to shore up their finances, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.

The group noted that a high proportion of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of municipal officials said they would focus on restructuring services and utilising financial reserves to manage increasing fiscal pressures.”

Specific Examples of Proposed Sales

One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in another town to generate £20m over the next half-decade.

• A local golf course and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will additionally be disposed of under the plan.

Local Levy Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures

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 raise council taxes next spring to cover the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a persistent housing shortage.

Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and temporary accommodation.

“We are adopting creative strategies but some of these require time to deliver both better provisions and financial savings,” stated a council leader.

He added: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a unitary authority, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”

Countrywide Trends and Forecasts

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

A network of councils projected that council deficits will reach £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to cope with increased demand.

Ministers have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until next year after a white paper outlining those reforms was recently delayed.

Disadvantage and Funding Gaps

Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) for English councils, several participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in the country.

• “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the top 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.

“While only a single urban area is among the ten most deprived for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the scale of challenges facing local leaders 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 financial structure that reflects and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and need,” said a council leader.

“Without this, councils will continue to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their communities.”

One in five of local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the past 12 months, the study found.