Agenda item

Jim Cliffe, Planning Obligations Manager introduced the report for Members and summarised some the key points:

For every pound of CIL collected 80p goes towards strategic infrastructure, 15p goes to the Area Committees to determine what local infrastructure they want to apply it to and 5p goes towards covering the administration costs.

Any infrastructure funded from CIL must support and enable the growth of the City as set out in the Local Plan.

To date the Council has collected approx. £51m of CIL and has allocated approx. £71m. Over-allocation of £20m was not said to be a problem as the money was not all required at the same time and was intended to be drawn down over a period of time as the projects progress.

The future of CIL and all other types of planning obligations and developer contributions were said to be uncertain.  The Government has raised the idea of replacing them with a new method of infrastructure levy.  This was consulted on earlier in the year but the proposals were said to have been universally rejected by local authorities and housing associations. But it remained to be seen what would happen in the future.

The Council was said to be collecting on average between £7m - £8m each year.  For that to continue it would require a regular stream of larger schemes to continue to be delivered as they generate larger amounts of CIL.

The following points were raised and questions asked by Members:

The Chair asked for clarification about scheme that provided high levels of affordable housing (AH) and them not generating the full level of CIL payments.  It was replied that if a scheme provided 100% AH it would not generate any CIL payments.

A discussion was had about the relationship between CIL and S106 and whether a scheme that didn’t generate CIL could still attract S106. It was said this was quite complicated and national changes were made in 2013.  The Governments preferred approach to developer contributions was CIL but it was still possible to generate small amounts S106. 

It was clarified that the administration amount was ‘up to’ 5 pence in every pound but it could be 4 pence, and a penny would then be added to the strategic pot.

A Member asked if the £25m of developer contributions were gaining high interest whilst sat in bank accounts? It was confirmed that S106 is required to be held in an interest paying account but CIL money was not. 

It was confirmed that the amount charged per square metre does vary between local authorities.

A Member asked why some schemes, for example ‘improvements to parks and green spaces in growth areas across the City’ were shown in the report as not started?  It was said that this allocation stemmed from a Full Council amendment in March 2022.  The amendment required parks officers to identify schemes in areas of growth and then have the approach formally approved at Cabinet, which happened in April 2023. It was anticipated that some of those schemes would begin in the next few months.

It was highlighted some Area Committees had very little CIL because there are so few developments in those areas, which meant there were lengthy backlogs of projects, many of which were local transport schemes to improve road safety.  Was there a way to allocate any strategic CIL to some of these areas?  The answer was no, due to there being very little or no growth in those areas and the funding had to focus on that. In respect of a specific query relating to the AC2 area it was confirmed that there was a small  amount of unspent S106 money from the Cricket Ground Redevelopment that could be used to fund local transport schemes near the cricket Ground.

A discussion was had about how CIL was used across the City and possible forthcoming changes to how it was allocated next year.  Some Members voiced concerns that any changes did not make the situation worse and said it needed it to be very carefully thought through.

The Commission thanked the Planning Obligations Manager for the very helpful report and discussion.