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Based on a recent survey of local authorities, English councils are planning to offload community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they rely on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.

Growing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales

The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in England reported that 60% of local authorities are planning to sell assets to cover the rising costs of adult and children’s social care.

Councils have in the past come under fire for selling playing fields and land to support their finances, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.

This coalition noted that a significant number of authorities attempting to raise money from a fire sale of holdings marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of local leaders said they would focus on restructuring services and utilising savings to manage increasing fiscal pressures.”

Detailed Cases of Planned Disposals

One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan included the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in Rochester to raise 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.

• A local golf course and commercial properties owned in two English counties, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will also be disposed of under the strategy.

Council Tax Increases and Wider Fiscal Strains

This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers several urban centers, also found that over seven in ten of councils will need to increase council taxes next spring to cover the growing cost of core provisions, higher levels of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.

Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.

“We are adopting creative strategies but some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” said Vince Maple.

He continued: “We face demographic pressures which will continue to add to the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”

Countrywide Patterns and Forecasts

A survey of county councils this week also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals needing Send support.

The County Councils Network projected that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.

Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until the coming year after a white paper setting out those reforms was recently delayed.

Disadvantage and Financial Shortfalls

According to the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, many key cities members were among the most deprived in England.

• “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 nationally under the latest IMD measures,” said the study.

“Although only one key city is among the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The figures highlights the extent of challenges confronting local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the report concluded.

“Local government leaders have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” 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 local authorities have cut or compromised social care provision in the past 12 months, the study found.