CIL Reform

January 31, 2019

By Peter Dixon

The publication in December 2018 of draft amendments to the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 is the latest instalment in a process stretching back to the Autumn Budget in 2017, when the Government announced a series of proposed reforms designed to simplify the CIL regime.

The new draft regulations follow consultation undertaken during the first part of 2018 and if implemented will, in addition to a number of technical revisions, reduce the amount of mandatory consultation which must be carried out by local authorities before introducing or revising a charging schedule, lift the current restriction on pooling contributions from more than five s106 obligations to fund a single infrastructure project and abolish the restrictions currently contained in Regulation 123 which prevent the use of s106 obligations to secure certain classes of infrastructure.

Instead, local planning authorities will be required to produce annual Infrastructure Funding Statements setting out how they propose to use developer contributions and reporting on how revenue already collected from developer contributions has been applied. In the light of the increased monitoring burden this will impose on local authorities, it is proposed to specifically permit authorities to see a ‘proportionate and reasonable’ monitoring fee as part of contributions collected under s106.