To review the impact and delivery of the CIL regime for infrastructure across the Districts and the framework for spending CIL
Corporate Manager – Strategic Planning
Minutes:
4.1 The Professional Lead – Key Sites and Infrastructure and the Infrastructure Officer, referred Members to Paper JOS/17/1 and reminded Members of the briefing sessions 31 January at 5.30 pm and 14 March at 5.30pm.
4.2 Members asked how parishes applied for and received CIL funding and if any parishes had received any funding yet
4.3 The officer responded that CIL funding was paid to the parishes every six months and that the CIL income from developers was paid to the council in instalments. A summary of the payments made to parishes could be located on the Website. Parishes could spend CIL money on a variety of projects and community groups. At this early stage there had not yet been any reports back from parishes on how they had spent the money. But Members were informed that for statutory payments parishes were required to account for how they spent the money and this information was required to be published on the parishes websites.
4.4 The route map provided on page 3 of report JOS/17/1 outlined the intended engagement with parishes on how the councils and parishes jointly could spend CIL money. This would be supported by the launch of Parish Investment Infrastructure Document (PIIP).
4.5 Members asked if there were any arrangements made for spending the previous two years’ CIL money and how the Council were going to discuss infrastructure arrangements with other organisations and wider service providers in Suffolk.
4.6 Joint infrastructure provider arrangements had been established to work alongside other organisations and service providers in Suffolk.
4.7 The Officer clarified that 10 May 2018 was to be the launch of the spending arrangements, and that the spending arrangements were not put in place before as it was not anticipated that much funding would be collected the first year or two. The team had been looking at how other councils had managed their CIL funding, but it appeared that each council took a different approach for these arrangements.
4.8 Members then asked if parishes could be involved in the planning of the infrastructure in the district wide spending of CIL funding and the response was that it was important to safeguard the sustainability of development projects in parishes and that especially the Planning Department could provide further information to Members in relation to the infrastructure required to support the approved development.
4.9 The discussion developed further, and clarification was given on the differences between Section 106 and CIL Funding, and how each form of funding related to planning applications.
4.10 It was established that CIL funding was not going to be enough to fund infrastructure development and the concern was that parishes were competing against each other to get the funding. It was agreed that the bidding process did not resolve this issue.
4.11 Members were informed that CIL funding for parishes was paid to parishes at 15% and this was capped at £100 per council tax dwelling. However, if there was a neighbourhood plan in place the CIL funding for parishes would raise to an uncapped 25%. The Regulation 123 element of the CIL was available for the whole district. Options were under consideration for a framework to providing further funding for parishes from the district wide funding.
4.12 CIL liable development applications vary on a case by case basis and circumstances could change whilst the application was being considered and after permission was granted which impacted on the amount of CIL which could be received.
4.13 Members were encouraged to get involved and work with the infrastructure officers and were reminded of the briefings taking place in January and March.
4.14 Some Members wanted to know if it was possible to prevent some of the debt incurred by non-payment of CIL from building contractors and if validation of planning applications could prevent this. Officers responded that 8 to 10 debt recovery cases were on-going at any one time, but usually recovery of payments were received before the cases were presented to the Law Courts.
4.15 Members requested that the guide for CIL funding on the Website be produced in a brief guide for Members and that the link to the guide on the Website were forwarded to Members.
4.16 Members agreed that the CIL Spending scheme report was to be pre-scrutinised before going to Cabinet in March, however it was confirmed that the report would be presented to Cabinet at a later date, which was to be confirmed.
It was RESOLVED: -
That the CIL Spending Scheme report be pre-scrutinised before being presented to Cabinet
Supporting documents: