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According to a new survey of municipal councils, UK councils are preparing to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.

Growing Fiscal Pressures Drive Asset Sales

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

Councils have in the past come under fire for selling public land and land to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.

This coalition said that a high proportion of councils attempting to generate funds from a quick sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of municipal officials stated they would focus on service redesigns and utilising savings to manage increasing fiscal pressures.”

Specific Examples of Proposed Sales

One local authority in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a community venue in another town to raise 20 million pounds over the next half-decade.

• Gillingham golf club and commercial properties held in two English counties, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.

Local Levy Rises and Broader Financial Pressures

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

Medway council explained it will press ahead with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.

“We are adopting innovative approaches but some of these take time to achieve both improved services and cost efficiency,” said Vince Maple.

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

Countrywide Patterns and Projections

Research of county councils this week also found council budgets being strained by the increasing figures of children and adults requiring special educational assistance.

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

Government officials have delayed planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until next year after a white paper setting out those reforms has been postponed.

Disadvantage and Funding Gaps

Based on the latest indices of deprivation (IMD) covering English councils, several key cities members were included in the most disadvantaged in the country.

• “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the top 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.

“While only a single urban area is among the top 10 for disadvantaged communities countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The data underscores the scale of difficulties confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report added.

“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” stated a council leader.

“Without this, councils will continue to face difficult decisions around which essential services to fund, and which to cut, to the disadvantage of their residents.”

A fifth of councils have reduced or weakened social care provision in the last year, the study found.