Issue - meetings

Report of the Director for Development and Economic Growth

The Team Manager Planning delivered a presentation to the Group about Infrastructure Delivery and provided answers to the five questions that had been asked.

The Team Manager Planning provided the Group with some background information, being that infrastructure providers often gathered money from multiple development pots which while this may delay work until all of those had been collected, could also enable more to be delivered and with greater efficiency than if funded piecemeal. He explained that it was not possible to cross fund between s106 pots of money and clarified that the role of the Council was to work with relevant partners to identify infrastructure needs arising from a development, secure funding to meet those needs, and to collect the money secured through the legal agreements and make it available to the infrastructure provider/s.

In relation to infrastructure triggers and their monitoring, the Team Manager Planning explained that triggers for s106 and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) were different, with CIL triggers all being pre-defined in the instalments policy. He informed the Group of the various levels of CIL contributions required for small, medium and large developments and confirmed that as all payment due dates were time based, it was easy to monitor whether payment had been made on time. He added that development completion was monitored through regular updates from Council Tax.

In relation to s106 payments, the Team Manager Planning explained that triggers were bespoke negotiated for each development and were rarely time based, more often linked to events such as commencement of development or percentage occupation. He said that payments could be linked to the developer realising a return on their investment for larger developments, were often paid in instalments and depending on what was to be funded, related to when would be best to deliver that provision, for example it could be beneficial for a school to be built early. He added that s106 could also secure works rather than financial payments and that works could be to directly facilitate the development or to offset its impacts on services and infrastructure.

The Team Manager Planning informed the Group that s106 triggers were monitored through Council Tax information, annual monitoring undertaken by the Planning Policy Team and from estimates provided by developers at previous trigger stages. He explained that on and off site physical delivery had to be monitored directly, but that functionality of infrastructure could not be monitored by the Council and as such was not signed off.

The Team Manager Planning explained that enforcement of s106 was conducted through legal action for breach of contract and that CIL had inbuilt penalties and functions with the Council being able to apply stops functions, late payments and surcharges. He added that in relation to CIL, a developer needed to inform the Council of commencement onsite and forfeited the facility to make staggered payments if they did not do so.

Councillor Thomas referred to the visibility of s106 to town and parish councils and the level of understanding  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4