DCLG extends scope for spending levy

30 January 2008

The community infrastructure levy will have to fund motorway and trunk road schemes, flood defences, hospitals, schools and, possibly, affordable housing, as well as transport projects.

The Department for Communities and Local Government this week proposed ‘a wide definition’ of infrastructure to be paid for by the levy, which it expects to raise ‘hundreds of millions’ extra for projects to mitigate the impact of housing expansion.

The Government stressed that ‘the CIL is not just about transport and strategic infrastructure’, but ‘making certain that things which make quality of life good are provided’, including schools and parks.

Controversially, the Government is also keeping the door open to councils also using the levy to secure funding for affordable housing, following concern from the National Housing Federation that contributions might be reduced.

The department is to include affordable housing within its definition of ‘infrastructure’ within the Bill, while insisting that this should be provided as part of site-specific planning obligations.

The DCLG claimed: ‘While we do not initially intend to include affordable housing within the scope of what may be funded from CIL, affordable housing will be included within the definition so that it could be included, if evidence shows that this is necessary.’

Highways Agency and Environment Agency will also be able to use the levy money, because ‘the spending of some national bodies is essential to unlocking development’.

But the department said the funding from the CIL would be additional to the planned ‘substantial public sector investment aimed at ensuring the sustainability of our communities’, and councils should have regard to this when setting the levy locally. The levy cannot ‘remedy pre-existing deficiencies in infrastructure’ – unlike the proposed local supplementary business rate, which could be used to boost highway maintenance funds (Surveyor, 11 October 2007).

Click here for more on the the community infrastructure levy.

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DCLG extends scope for spending levy

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