the appropriate contributions may need to be undertaken.


The Consultation Exercise


The updated Developers’ Guide documents have been developed to reflect current legislation and also to follow national best practice from other local authorities across England. This follows the publication of a draft Developers’ Guide with supporting documents in March 2011. This was issued for public consultation. The consultation process took place over an 8-week period, commencing on 07 March 2011 and ending on 03 May 2011.


Of the responses from the town/parish councils, a few raised concerns that the documents did not seem to recognise this tier of local government and their importance in the planning process. This is particularly in light of government’s Big Society agenda and moves towards the emphasis on localism. The documents have been amended to reflect this. In addition these comments have been collated and forwarded onto the relevant local planning authority to help inform their local plan work and their supplementary planning documents on s106. The information will also be useful in informing the emerging policy of neighbourhood planning.


The main objections received were from developers and consultants. Many of these issues have been dealt with through improved wording of the document. This was primarily through clarity on how infrastructure capacity is accounted for and the clearer linkage to the new Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Regulations. It should be noted that any request for a planning obligation would need to be justified in its own right, having regard to the tests of Regulation 122 of the CIL Regulations 2010. Reference to a type of contribution in the Developers’ Guide is not in itself justification for requesting a planning obligation.


Some developers and consultants asked that the work be halted because of the CIL Regulations. A review was undertaken to look at any legal issues raised during consultation and it was determined that


THE TERRIER - Summer 2012


the documents are valid under current regulations. The approach adopted has been successfully applied both before and after the CIL Regulations were introduced. Moreover, obligations have been included in s106 agreements that have been scrutinised by Planning Inspectors since the CIL Regulations have been introduced. Furthermore, the documents are consistent with other recently adopted planning obligation policy across England.


Community Infrastructure Levy


Six Suffolk local authorities are all at the beginning of an exercise to introduce a CIL Charging Schedule in their area (Babergh District Council, Forest Heath District Council, Ipswich Borough Council, Mid Suffolk District Council, St Edmundsbury Borough Council and Suffolk Coastal District Council), and Waveney District Council has just published its Draft Charging Schedule. A Support Group, the Suffolk CIL Officers Group (SCILOG), is attended by all districts and the county, and has regular meetings to discuss mutual co- operation through the process.


CIL funding of infrastructure improvements will be a common feature of local government in years to come. There is clearly scope for discussion with similarly placed colleagues in other authorities, as well as the County Council, and this is perhaps the most obvious role for SCILOG. However, there is also scope for the joint commissioning of specialist viability consultants. Discussions at SCILOG concluded that it would be possible to jointly appoint a consultant who would carry out as a first phase, a Suffolk based viability exercise.


The second phase of the viability work would be to work with an authority to prepare recommendations for a Charging Schedule, taking into account the infrastructure needs of that district, local variations in viability, and preferred differences of approach. Each district will arrive at the second phase at a different time; there being many hurdles to clear, and many opportunities for delay for reasons often beyond the control of the authority. It is important that everybody is not forced to move at the speed of the slowest authority. So, when the time is


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right, individual authorities would then move on to Stage 2 with the consultant. East Sussex authorities are following this approach.


The advantages in working together in this way are not just financial but:


(a) It will provide a conduit for the spread of best practice, in what is a new area of expertise and


(b) It will facilitate a common approach to the other challenges of CIL, not least the agreement of protocols on the spending of CIL monies with service providers.


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