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According to a latest poll of municipal councils, UK councils are preparing to sell social clubs, sports centres, and retail spaces as they rely on a fire sale of properties to stabilize finances.

Growing Financial Pressures Prompt Asset Sales

The Key Cities Group representing major urban areas in the UK stated that six out of ten of councils are planning to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.

Councils have in the past faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they contend they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or declare themselves bankrupt.

This coalition said that a high proportion of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials said they would prioritise service redesigns and using savings to manage growing fiscal pressures.”

Specific Cases of Proposed Sales

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

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

Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures

This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that over seven in ten of authorities will have to raise council taxes next spring to address the rising cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.

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

“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these require time to deliver both better provisions and financial savings,” said a council leader.

He continued: “We face population challenges which will continue to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is very challenging.”

Countrywide Patterns and Forecasts

Research of county councils this week further found local finances being strained by the growing number of children and adults needing Send support.

The County Councils Network projected that council deficits will reach £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they struggle to manage increased demand.

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

Deprivation and Financial Gaps

Based on the most recent deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, many participating urban areas were among the most deprived in the country.

• “Participating urban centers like several major towns rank in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the study.

“Although only a single urban area is in the ten most deprived for disadvantaged communities nationally, urban areas are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of England. The figures highlights the scale of difficulties facing municipal officials across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report concluded.

“Local government leaders have been explicit about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and responds to the real levels of deprivation and need,” said Michael Mordey.

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

One in five of councils have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the survey found.