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According to a latest survey of local authorities, UK councils are preparing to sell community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they bet on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.

Increasing Fiscal Challenges Drive Asset Sales

The Key Cities Group for major urban areas in England stated that 60% of local authorities are planning to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.

Local governments have previously come under fire for disposing of playing fields and land 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 high proportion of councils attempting to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (six in ten) of local leaders said they would prioritise restructuring services and using savings to manage increasing financial challenges.”

Detailed Cases of Planned Sales

One local authority in Kent announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over five years.

• Gillingham golf club and business parks owned in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for Medway council, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.

Council Tax Increases and Wider Fiscal Pressures

The survey of councils in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of councils will need to raise council taxes next spring to address the rising cost of core provisions, higher levels of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.

Medway council explained it will press ahead with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of children services, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.

“We are taking innovative approaches but certain measures require time to achieve both improved services and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.

He continued: “There are population challenges 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 very challenging.”

National Patterns and Projections

A survey of regional authorities this week also found local finances being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.

A network of councils said that council deficits will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with rising needs.

Government officials have put off planned reforms to the Send system until next year after a policy document setting out those reforms has been postponed.

Deprivation and Funding Shortfalls

Based on the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, several participating urban areas were among the most disadvantaged in England.

• “Member cities like several major towns place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 deprivation indices,” said the study.

“While only a single urban area is in the top 10 for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The data underscores the extent of difficulties facing local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the report added.

“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and responds to the real levels of disadvantage and need,” said a council leader.

“Lacking this, local authorities will continue to face impossible choices around which essential services to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”

One in five of local authorities have reduced or weakened care services in the last year, the study revealed.