The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government introduced the latest CIL amendments with a 4 June 2019 press release “Government makes it easier for Councils to deliver new housing projects”.  The premise was that the amendments would streamline the operation of CIL and that the new transparency requirements would prove the worth of development to existing residents.

The new transparency

The Community Infrastructure Levy (Amendment) (England) (No. 2) Regulations 2019 came into force on 1 September.  Much has been written about the adequacy or otherwise of the changes.  This article focuses on the assertion that providing transparency will foster the support of existing residents to development “in their backyard”. The changes mean that Councils must now publish annual Infrastructure Funding Statements detailing the amount of money demanded and collected from developers in the form of CIL and s106 contributions and their spending.

Will it help?

In recent years the writer has worked her way North from zone 1 in London to a Yorkshire village, via a Hertfordshire commuter town.  In the inner-city area of the East End that I lived in, development was welcomed.  It was always going to be an improvement!  Experience elsewhere is different.  Development is frequently perceived as an unwelcome imposter.

In planning we are regularly asked for help from friends and her neighbours to help formulate objections to developments proposed close to their homes and into a small area of Green Belt at the village edge.  Dealing with these requests are a reminder that the average person has very little understanding of the planning process, what considerations are relevant in determining an application and quite possibly no knowledge at all that contributions are sought from developers.

Even if developments are relatively small scale, they can be liable to a CIL charge and, therefore, will indirectly contribute to infrastructure funding in the district.  Improvements to single-track access could be secured, playgrounds could be built, community projects could receive funding. Parking and roadways almost always are improved.

For strategic sites where there is a significant publicity of the infrastructure promises made by the developer, the new requirements might give residents a level of comfort.  However, on smaller developments, the knowledge that a sum is to be paid into an infrastructure pot and that the Council will publish spending details in due course is no help.  The crux of the issue is that the development is in their proverbial backyard and they will never support it.