UK Councils Intend to Sell Off Community Hubs and Leisure Facilities to Balance Books

According to a new survey of local authorities, UK councils are planning to offload community centers, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of properties to balance the books.

Growing Financial Pressures Drive Asset Sales

A coalition of councils for second-tier cities in the UK reported that 60% of councils are planning to dispose of properties to cover the rising costs of social services for vulnerable individuals.

Local governments have previously faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and land to support their finances, but they argue they must proceed to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.

This coalition noted that a significant number of councils attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of assets marked “a clear change from 2024, when the largest share (60%) of local leaders said they would focus on restructuring services and utilising savings to manage increasing fiscal pressures.”

Specific Examples of Planned Sales

One local authority in southeast England said its asset disposal plan featured the sale of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in Rochester to generate 20 million pounds over five years.

• Gillingham golf club and business parks held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all generate rent for the authority, will also be disposed of under the strategy.

Council Tax Rises and Wider Fiscal Pressures

This research of local authorities in the key cities group, which covers Sunderland, Southampton, Gloucester and Salford, also found that more than 70% of councils will need to increase local levies next spring to cover the growing cost of essential services, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.

The authority 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 some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and cost efficiency,” said a council leader.

He added: “We face population challenges which will continue to increase the pressures we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our revenue support grant from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”

National Trends and Forecasts

A survey of county councils this week further found council budgets being strained by the growing number of children and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.

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

Government officials have put off planned reforms to the special educational needs framework until the coming year after a policy document setting out those changes was recently delayed.

Deprivation and Funding Gaps

Based on the latest deprivation measures (IMD) for UK local authorities, several participating urban areas were included in the most disadvantaged in England.

• “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the latest IMD measures,” noted the study.

“Although only one key city is among the top 10 for disadvantaged communities nationally, cities are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures underscores the extent of challenges facing local leaders across key cities in the coming year,” the analysis concluded.

“Council officials have been explicit about the need for a fair and sustainable financial structure that reflects and addresses the real levels of deprivation and need,” said Michael Mordey.

“Without 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.”

A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised social care provision in the last year, the survey revealed.