Section 8 - How the CIL will be collected
Chelmsford City Council has established a CIL allocation process as outlined in paragraphs 4.7 – 4.11 of its Chelmsford City Council - Allocating and Spending CIL document, which invites expressions of interest from stakeholders (including ECC) for funding periodically, and which are subsequently approved by the City Council Cabinet or Full Council. Whilst ECC has an opportunity to bid for CIL monies, it still has no formal role in the allocation of CIL monies through this process. It has led to some difficulties in securing monies for infrastructure projects that ECC is required to deliver with any degree of certainty or when they may be required. ECC would welcome any governance arrangements that included a more formal role for the County Council in the CIL governance process, in particular regarding when CIL monies are made available for bids; the amount of funds made available to bid for and how any monies will be prioritised and apportioned to strategic projects. ECC would recommend that BBC keeps this in mind when identifying any governance arrangements for how CIL monies will be spent over and above the statutory requirements to parish councils and administration costs.

Section 8 - How the CIL will be collected
For clarity, ECC recommend reference is made to the requirement for BBC to prepare and publish online an annual infrastructure funding statement. The Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations and PPG (Paragraph: 175 Reference ID: 25-175-20190901) requires this to provide transparency as to how contributions from development through the levy or section 106 planning obligations has been allocated and/or spent during the reporting year.

Section 9 - Evidence base documents - CIL Viability Assessment Update (August 2022)

Consistency point – paragraph 2.38 refers to the lifting of S106 pooling restrictions, however paragraph 7.28 refers to ‘restrictions on pooling S106 payments’ being in place. Pooling restrictions were removed in September 2019.

Section 9 - Evidence base documents - CIL Viability Assessment Update (August 2022)
ECC seeks clarification on the S106 contributions and infrastructure costs used as part of the viability work for the CIL. The CIL Consultation Information Booklet states that the CIL Viability Assessment Update (August 2022) ‘considers the impact of a CIL charge, in addition to normal development costs and policy and infrastructure requirements in adopted BBC Local Plan 2016-2033, on the financial viability of new development in the area’.

However, the Viability Assessment Update makes reference to both the ‘figures based on October 2018 costs’ and then ‘indexed to July 2022’ (paragraph 7.30), and to ‘the IDP as published in January 2021 and subsequently examined and approved through the EIP’ (paragraph 7.36).

Consistent referencing of the cost of infrastructure is necessary, rather than two sources of figures.

Section 9 - Evidence base documents - Infrastructure Delivery Plan
ECC seeks clarification on which version of the IDP has been used as part of the viability work for the CIL and for this to be referenced accordingly.

Section 9 makes reference to the IDP version 3 from 2019, which was produced prior to the Local Plan Examination in Public (EIP) Hearing sessions. The IDP published in January 2021 updated Part B (the Schedule of Costs) and was the version that was examined by the Inspectors as part of the Local Plan EIP. The infrastructure requirements set out in the January 2021 IDP were updated to reflect the then current proposed housing figures / employment land for the Local Plan site allocations, as well as the latest costs of the required infrastructure. This resulted in an increase in infrastructure costs and the funding gap increasing from £50.4 million (2019) to £71 million (2021). It is unclear whether the impact of this has been considered as part of the viability work for the CIL.

Furthermore, it is unclear whether the impact of an increase in housing numbers on some of the Local Plan residential site allocations (as requested by the Inspectors as part of the Main Modifications to the Local Plan), or sites that have subsequently obtained planning consent have been considered as part of the viability work for the CIL.

Section 10 - The need for a CIL

Reference is made to the IDP identifying ‘a significant infrastructure funding gap in the area based on the assessment of infrastructure needs, costs and funding’ (£50.4 million). As commented Under Section 9 this is based on the 2019 IDP, not the IDP published in January 2021 which has a funding gap of £71 million. Further clarity is therefore required on this matter.

Section 12 - Determining the proposed rates

ECC’s comments to Sections 9 & 10 also apply under Section 12.