Officers question latest method of extra funding

07 February 2008
 
Senior transport planners have questioned whether the Government’s new method of raising additional funding for essential infrastructure to accompany new homes is necessary or practical.

David Hackforth, head of planning and transport at Milton Keynes Council, one of the first authorities to implement a ‘roof tax’ on each new housing unit to pay for transport improvements, asked: ‘Do we need the community infrastructure levy?’

Hackforth, speaking at a conference on the levy proposal, which the Government claims has widespread support, questioned whether it would provide benefits which a voluntary levy did not. Ian Houghton, highways project engineer at Hampshire County Council, which launched its own voluntary levy last autumn, shared Hackforth’s concerns.

‘If the local planning authority sets the levy, we could end up with 14 different levies in Hampshire,’ he said. ‘And will the county council, as highway authority, and education authority, have any influence over how the levy is spent?’

Hackforth said there would be difficulties in apportioning payments to cross-border infrastructure, particularly for small unitary authorities. ‘For the voluntary levy, English Partnerships has acted as banker – can that work everywhere?’ he asked. John Turner, partner at chartered surveyor Turner Morum, also speaking, said that deciding how much the levy should be ‘is not going to be easy’.

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