The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) would be payable in respect of qualifying developments permitted by the Council on or after 4 August 2014.  This would be in accordance with the CIL Charging Schedule adopted by the Council on 18 February 2014.  The Cabinet had tasked the Committee with developing governance arrangements for distributing CIL income to appropriate infrastructure projects.  Arising from this, the Principal Planning Officer presented a report advocating a Member led process to enable such arrangements to be worked up.

The report explained that the CIL regime would largely replace Section 106 Agreements as the mechanism whereby Local Authorities secured funding for local infrastructure.  Unlike the S.106 regime, CIL receipts did not necessarily need to be spent on projects directly related to the developments that paid them.  The Committee was also reminded that Town and Parish Councils would receive 15% or 25% of CIL collected from their areas, depending on whether or not the Councils concerned had adopted Neighbourhood Plans.

The report addressed issues which the Council would need to consider when prioritising the distribution of CIL funding, including the scope for ranking the relative importance of the different types of infrastructure projects and/or identifying criteria against which competing schemes would be assessed.  The following related issues would also have to be addressed:

·                    whether residents should be consulted about the infrastructure project assessment process;

·                    the possible merits of separating CIL payments into ‘local’ and ‘strategic’ funding pots according to a priority based split (i.e. whereby local funds could be spent on infrastructure in the vicinity of associated developments and strategic funds pooled for more substantial infrastructure schemes);

·                    the need to enable the Council to react to ‘windfall housing developments’ not already identified within the Allocations and Development Management Plan;

·                    the Council’s willingness to transfer a fixed amount or proportion of CIL per annum to partner organisations to deliver specific projects;

·                    arrangements for delegating the power to spend CIL;

·                    the need to allow CIL to be paid by instalments to help maintain the financial viability of larger residential developments.

Members expressed the view that, as far as delegation arrangements were concerned, it would not be appropriate for individual Officers or Members to be given powers to spend CIL money.  A Member level Committee was identified as the most suitable option.  

It was agreed that Local Planning and Environment Advisory Committee members should be given the opportunity to debate these issues in greater detail at a future workshop.  A date for this would be scheduled once the timetable of meetings and Committee membership for 2014/15 had been determined.  July was identified as the preferred month for the workshop. 

Public Sector Equality Duty

Members noted that consideration had been given to impacts under the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Resolved: That a separate CIL workshop, consisting of all Local Planning and Environment Advisory Committee Members who  wish to attend, be arranged in Summer 2014 to consider CIL governance issues in more detail and begin to develop recommendations for how the spending of CIL should be prioritised and a report brought back to a future meeting of the Committee for consideration.