The draft Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) could stifle development and fail to deliver infrastructure, cross-industry leaders warned this week.
David Hackforth, head of transport planning at Milton Keynes Council, warned the new levy on development to support infrastructure might only benefit high-value areas. ‘These tariffs only really work when land value is there,’ he said. ‘There will be a need for public sector funding on low-value areas.’
The flexibility afforded to charging authorities (CAs) to set their own rates and pass on the revenue across administrative boundaries could lead to inconsistencies, he added. ‘It’s an awkward situation if both CAs choose a difference charging rate. There’s no guidance to push them forward.’
Speaking on behalf of developers, Hugh Roberts, director of planning at Colin Buchanan, also bemoaned the lack of guidance on cross-boundary applications. ‘Greedy authorities might kill recovery – but pro-development ones may undermine their neighbours if they have low CIL rates, or none at all,’ he said at the Waterfront conference in London.
There was also widespread confusion and concern over the future role of Section 106, which the Government intends to ‘scale back’.
Peter Minoletti, planning development officer at the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation, said: ‘We have a very successful tariff system, but now we won’t be able to apply CIL, and the local borough councils are at very different stages of their development plans.’
Sarah Wood, spokeswoman for the Department for Communities and Local Government, said the Government was consulting on a two-year transition period from Section 106 to CIL, and on whether to phase out Section 106 at all. But Mr Roberts warned of the potential confusion created by two mechanisms. ‘When does one apply and not apply?’ He added: ‘The more flexible CIL becomes, the more site-specific, the less difference there is with Section 106.’
Jonathan Seager, assistant director of planning, British Property Federation, said local authorities could, theoretically, charge for whatever they wanted with both mechanisms. ‘Legislatively, there is no scaling back of Section 106 at all. CIL is very poorly drafted as it stands.’
He added that there was no obligation for CAs to do anything with the revenue raised from CIL – a concern echoed by John Qualtough, a Bircham Dyson Bell lawyer specialising in planning. ‘It is strong on taxation but weak on the delivery of infrastructure,’ Mr Hackforth, who is also president of the Planning Officers’ Society, concluded.
The CIL consultation closes on 23 October, and the regulation will come into effect in April 2010.
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