Agenda item

(Director of Resources) to consider the attached report.

The Select Committee noted that Grants and Contributions make up a fairly modest proportion of capital funding, this includes section 106 and similar income which the Council receives as part of agreements made when planning permission was granted for development schemes. These monies could be provided for a variety of different purposes and would be based upon requirements identified as part of the planning process. The types of project could range from education, highways, leisure, health and affordable housing provision. In some cases the money was provided to the County Council or the National Health Service and in other cases to this Council.

If a developer is developing land for housing purposes there was a requirement to provide 30% affordable housing. The developer will either build that housing on the site they are developing or as in a number of instances, provide money to the Council to meet the required social housing on another site. Prior to the house building programme this money was used by the General Fund and passed to housing associations, however this money is currently being used by the HRA.

There are also other legal documents which provide for financial payments to be made to the Council known as a Deed of Unilateral Undertaking. The Council is not a party to the Deed but under the legislation (S106 Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as amended) is able to enforce the undertaking given if necessary. As the Council is not a party it does not make any commitment to returning the monies if not spent, so the party making the payment has no ability to enforce repayment against the Council. Having said that the Council must spend the monies for the purpose given or be open to possible challenge by way of Judicial Review.

As at 31^st March 2015 the Council held £2,172,000 in various private contributions; £1,173,000 for affordable housing, £474,000 for other projects, £477,000 due to other organisations varying from NHS England to a number of parish councils and £48,000 from the Civic Offices O2 mast. Based on current expectations the affordable housing contributions should all be used in 2015/16, however there is likely to be funding still available for other projects.

It is possible that Section 106 agreements would be replaced by the Community Infrastructure Levy or CIL, This was being evaluated as part the Local Plan process by a consultant who was doing the groundwork to assess whether or not we should put a CIL in place, however we will not be able to adopt this until the Local Plan has been finalised. The work on this is being paid for from the Local Plan DDF budget.

The Committee noted that some S106 money had not been spent and that there was a time limit that applied to some of this money. It was suggested that there was a case to make ward councillors aware of this and to have decisions made at Cabinet level as apparently no one had ownership of it at present.

Agreed that a list of this money be made available to the Cabinet under private business for discussion and to have a look at the principal of the use of this money.

RESOLVED:

(1)  That current position on private funding was noted; and

(2)  That the anomaly of unspent funds be brought to the attention of the Cabinet and relevant Ward mMembers for further discussion.