Policy information sourced from the Mayfair Neighbourhood Plan

6.1 CIL & s.106

How the Community Benefits from s.106 Obligations and CIL

A key consideration which affects a decision whether or not to grant planning permission is the way a proposed development responds to and impacts on its surroundings. In the past, local councils set out in policy those areas to which they expected developments to contribute, where directly related, necessary and proportionate the relevant development, so that areawide improvements could be secured. Examples might be new family housing developments making financial contributions to the improvement or provision of new schools; or securing the provision of affordable housing. As well as area-wide improvements, developments would then also have to mitigate site-specific negative impacts caused by the proposal in question. Such contributions could only be sought where they complied with the requirements of national policy, namely that it is: necessary, directly related, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the development in question.

Traditionally, these material considerations would be resolved by a combination of planning conditions attached to a permission, and s.106 Obligations.

In 2010, the Government introduced a new tax on development to standardise some of the area-wide contribution which a development makes. This is known as the Community Infrastructure Levy. All councils have the opportunity to specify in a list what infrastructure they would like to see improved and enhanced over the lifetime of a plan, and to set a standard levy per additional square foot of built development which a proposal will generate. Each development pays the levy to the Council, who then applies the funds to the specified infrastructure.

CIL has not replaced s.106 Obligations altogether; they are still used to secure site-specific infrastructure and other requirements not covered by the CIL payment.

As the ‘Collecting Authority’, WCC hold all receipts from CIL and s.106 Obligations to spend on their own infrastructure requirements.

Once the Plan is made, the Forum is able to specify to WCC our own list of infrastructure requirements. At least 25% of CIL money paid by Mayfair development must then be spent within Mayfair. WCC must engage with the Forum and agree with us how that money is to be spent in Mayfair.

Further, the policies in the Plan provide justification for specific developments contributing via s.106 Obligations to new infrastructure in their vicinity. They also outline the sort of priorities which new development might affect and are required to resolve in order to mitigate their impact.

Allocation of CIL Receipts

In respect of the 25% CIL receipts for Mayfair developments which WCC must spend in order to address the demands that development places on Mayfair, the allocation of funds is, in principle, broad. There is freedom to spend the money in Mayfair on “the provision, improvement, replacement, operations or maintenance of infrastructure or anything else that is concerned with addressing the demands that development places on an area.”

This Plan’s Priorities

This Plan specifies the Forum’s priorities: