Agenda item

The purpose of this report is to provide an update regarding the Council’s monitoring and administration of Section 106 planning obligations.  The Committee is asked to review the proposed amendments to the adopted Supplementary Planning Document in relation to administration and monitoring fees for Section 106 (S106) planning obligations.

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning introduced the agenda item.

A Section 106 (S106) agreement was a legally binding agreement or ‘planning obligation’ between a local planning authority, like South Kesteven District Council and a property owner or developer.  The purpose of a S106 agreement was to mitigate the impact of the development on the local community and infrastructure.  Typically, these agreements addressed issues such as:

• Affordable housing

• Highways

• Education

• Public open space and leisure

• Town centre improvements

During a restructure of the Planning Department (Winter 2022-2023), the role of Infrastructure Delivery Officer was created, replacing a more administrative monitoring role.  Following a competitive recruitment process, the role was successfully recruited to in September 2023.  The role involved monitoring and recording obligations, as well as liaising with stakeholders to ensure any financial contributions were appropriately spent.

Currently the Infrastructure Delivery Officer (IDO) was working with the Assistant Director of Planning & Growth, Development Management and Enforcement Officers to review the current processes and practices to identify opportunities for improvement.

The Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 (CIL Regulations) required that from the financial year 2019/2020 onwards, any local authority that had received developer obligation (either through Section 106 planning obligations or the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)) must publish an IFS by 31 December each year.  The Planning Committee (7 December 2023) received an update and reviewed the IFS for the financial year 2022-23 prior to its publication on the website.

The Council was able to set charges to recover the cost of delivering discretionary services.  For the Planning Service, this means the Council can recover costs associated with monitoring Section 106 agreements.

Members raised the following points during discussion:

·       The report was welcomed as positive.

·       What happened if the Developers did not honour the Section 106 agreement? A Section 73 Notice by Developers working at Barrowby was mentioned as an example.

The Assistant Director of Planning confirmed that Section 106 agreements are legally binding and that failure to comply with them can be enforced through the courts.  The Officer also mentioned that there were clauses in Section 106 agreements that confirmed that late payments were subject to interest charges.  There were mechanisms in place, such as a Section 73, to vary the terms of a planning permission which would require an application to the Council.  This would be considered in line with current procedures.

Councillor Mark Whittington declared an interest in that he is the councillor for the Barrowby Ward and has had meetings with a development group in his ward that had a Section 106 agreement.

It was proposed, seconded and AGREED that the Finance and Economic Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

1. Noted the update regarding Section 106 Monitoring, including the publication of the Infrastructure Funding Statement.

2. Recommended to Full Council that the charging mechanism for the administration and monitoring of Section 106 agreements currently set out in the “Planning Obligations Supplementary Planning Document (2012)” was updated.

It was proposed, seconded and AGREED that an extra 30 minutes be added to the committee’s meeting time as the meeting was approaching 3 hours in length.