Agenda item

To follow

4.1 Emma Talbot (Head of Planning) introduced the report. The following key points were noted:

·           Section 106 and CIL funds are held by the Council’s planning department. Other Council services would make formal applications to receive a portion of these based on projects being managed in those services.

·           Each section 106 agreement had specific conditions for how this funding could be spent. The CIL Infrastructure List, also known as the 123 List, sets out the types of infrastructure that CIL funds can be used for. A council had more flexibility in what was included in this list.

·           Section 106 funds were no longer being accrued for infrastructure because the Council had been applying CIL since 1 April 2015.

·           A process was needed to ensure further public and Member engagement in the allocation of section 106 and CIL funds. This process would need to fit national planning guidance and legal advice would be needed in its development. The aim was to achieve transparency and accountability while fitting within a complex legal framework. Once proposals had been developed, consultation would take place.

4.2 Emma Talbot and James Lee (Head of Culture and Community Development) answered questions from the Committee. The following key points were noted:

·           The CIL 123 list had been consulted on as part of the formal plan preparation process. The CIL charging schedule including this list had been approved by Full Council on 25 February 2015. CIL was only payable on commencement of a development, so although it had been applied since April 2015, few CIL payments had been received so far.

·           The level of involvement for members of the public in the allocation of CIL funds would likely differ for different types of infrastructure on the CIL 123 List. The plan would be to use existing networks and groups to consult with when allocating the neighbourhood element of CIL funds. Officers were investigating how to engage with local assemblies in this context. The locations for the previous trials were decided on the basis that section 106 funding would be available in those areas for allocation.

·           The section 106/CIL Overview Group was chaired by the Head of Planning, and a legal officer and the relevant section 106 officer were also members. Applications for funding had to/have to meet very detailed standards to ensure they meet the terms set out in the relevant section 106 agreement. The priorities for spend set out in section 106 agreements were determined by the needs arising from the development, which had been consulted on as part of the plan making process and for the application itself. The head of terms of a section 106 agreement were agreed as part of a planning application for a development and ward councillors were involved in that process.

·           The planning department produced monitoring reports to outline how the funds had been spent. The legislation around CIL required an annual monitoring report from the Council’s planning department. 

·           Officers had attended a meeting of the Evelyn ward assembly to discuss the allocation of section 106 and CIL funds. Comments from the public at this meeting indicated that they did not feel they had been included in the process for allocation funding or determining priorities for spend. One thing to consider was that ward assemblies were not always representative of the population in a ward.

·           Section 106 and CIL funds were often used to fund for example street lighting and road works around major developments which could use up significant amounts of funding. It was not always clear to residents that these bit of infrastructure had funded via these planning obligations and that therefore less section 106 and CIL funds were available for other projects.

·           In areas where there was a neighbourhood plan, this plan was required to contain priorities for the area and it had to correspond with the Local Plan. A neighbourhood forum did not need to follow the Council’s organisational boundaries such as its electoral wards. Officers were working to develop relationships between existing neighbourhood forums and local assemblies. Where a neighbourhood forum was in place, 25% of CIL funds from development in that area would be available for local spend. 

·           Individual planning applications had to correspond with the Development Plan. The plans that form that, including local plans and supplementary planning documents, had been through public consultation, presented to scrutiny, agreed by Mayor and Cabinet and agreed by Full Council. These set out the scope of borough wide priorities and also more detailed guidance on the type of S106 funding that would be sought on individual applications. 

·           The Council had begun investigating whether a community trust could be set up to be used for relevant section 106 and a proportion of CIL payments. However with the current low interest rates for saving, a very substantial sum of money would be needed to ensure the trust could fund community work in perpetuity. Part of this work was identifying whether fund could be sought via other means such as crowdfunding, spacehive or endowments.

·           The regulations for the spending of section 106 and CIL funds were worded such that allocations needed to be based on geographical areas, and the priorities for spending were therefore based on the needs of the local community. It would require some more thinking to see how these allocations could take account of the special needs of certain groups across the borough, such as young people for example. 

4.3 The Committee made a number of comments. The following key points were noted:

·           The Committee asked for the CIL Infrastructure or CIL 123 list.

·           If Councillors were informed about the section 106 agreements relevant to their wards, they could help explain the conditions for spending section 106 funding to their residents.

·           Participatory budget techniques might be useful in consulting local communities on their priorities for allocation of section 106 and CIL funding.

4.4 RESOLVEDL That the Committee noted the report, and that the following views of the Committee be referred to Mayor and Cabinet:

The Committee felt it was important that the processes for allocating section 106 and CIL funding were made transparent so accountability could take place.

The Committee was aware that officers are considering the process and options for further public and Member engagement in the allocation of section 106 and CIL funds. The Committee felt a timeline should be established for when this consideration would be completed, so Councillors and members of the public could be made aware of the results.

The Committee felt that local assemblies should be made aware of any proposals for the allocation of Section 106 funding where communities would be involved in the allocation process. This should include those areas where a neighbourhood forum exists.

The Committee felt that participatory budgeting techniques should be considered as a method to involve communities in the allocation of relevant Section 106 or CIL funding.