Chichester District Council
Agenda item

Agenda item

Approval for Consultation of the Draft Infrastructure Business Plan 2018-2023 with the City, Town and Parish Councils and Key Infrastructure Delivery Commissioners

The report is at agenda item 5 of the agenda for the Cabinet’s meeting on Tuesday 5 September 2017 and its two appendices are in the agenda supplement (the appendices to appendix 1 are available only in electronic format with a hard copy in the Members Room)

 

The Cabinet made the following recommendation to the Council at this meeting:

 

RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL

 

That the consultation on the draft Infrastructure Business Plan 2018-23 (in appendix 1 to the agenda report) with the city, town and parish councils, neighbouring local authorities including the South Downs National Park Authority and key infrastructure Delivery Commissioners be approved for a period of six weeks from 2 October to 13 November 2017 subject to the amendments (as set out in the agenda report) recommended by the Development Plan and Infrastructure Panel.

Minutes:

The Council considered the recommendation made to it by the Cabinet at its meeting on Tuesday 5 September 2017 as set out on the face of the agenda, the details in respect of which were contained in the report and its two appendices on pages 22 to 55 of the agenda for that meeting (the appendices to the first appendix were available only electronically).  

 

Mrs Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services) formally moved the recommendation of the Cabinet and this was seconded by Mr Dignum (Leader of the Cabinet). 

 

Mrs Taylor said that approval was sought for consultationon the Infrastructure Business Plan (IBP)2018-2023 withparish councils,neighbouring local planningauthorities andkey infrastructuredelivery commissionersfor aperiod ofsix weeks. Theconsultation wouldoffer anopportunity forconsultees to: (a) checkthat theinformation providedto Chichester District Council (CDC) wasstill upto date; (b) influencewhich projects were to be selected for funding fromthe Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL); and (c) commenton whetherthe projectshad been correctly categorisedwithin eachyear. CDC’s Development Plan and Infrastructure Panel (DPIP) had reviewedthe draftIBP andin relationto school placesnoted thatsince 2016 the amountrequested byWest SussexCounty Council (WSCC)had increased by 50%.Detailed costswould berequired before funds couldbe releasedand WSCChad beenasked to showhow existingsection 106contributions togetherwith othersources offunding availableto itwould be usedto offsetits CIL request. With regard to Sussex Police,a numberof newprojects hadbeen putforward forfunding during2018-2019 relatingto newpolice carsand automaticnumber plate recognitioncameras. Sussex Police hadexplained that it could not fund those projects outof its existingbudgets and it had setout adetailed casefor CIL funding. Whilstit wasaccepted thatthose projects were'infrastructure' for CILpurposes, officershad challenged theavailability ofother sourcesof funding such as council tax receipts. Sussex Policehad advisedthat the projectscould not befunded fromthe growthin council taxreceipts and it had confirmed thatthe assets werein additionto itsexisting approvedcapital budgets. The DPIP consideredthe Sussex Police projectsto bepremature, asthe housing growthupon which theirjustification was basedhad notyet takenplace. Theprojects had,therefore, beenremoved fromthe CILspending planfor thetime being. The realtime passengerinformation screenproject tobe deliveredin 2019-2020and 2020-2021had previously been considered and rejectedby membersfor CIL spend butWSCC hadsince requestedthat thatproject be reconsidered. The DPIP had duly done so andnow supportedit since itencouraged modalswitch uponwhich the Chichester Local Plandepended. TheCIL spendingplan (page26 of the Cabinet agenda papers) reflected the views of both the DPIP andthe CDC/WSCC InfrastructureJoint MemberLiaison Group (IJMLG) as to whichprojects shouldbe selectedfor fundingwithin the nextfive years. After the end of theconsultation officerswould reportany suggestedamendments tothe IJMLGfor consideration prior to furtherconsideration by the DPIP, the Cabinet and the Council forapproval inMarch 2018.

 

Members discussed:

 

·       The need for CDC members who represented wards in the South Downs National Park Authority (SDNPA) area, and which were therefore outside CDC’s CIL jurisdiction, to have access to the SDNPA’s CIL documents and information.

 

·       The advantage of requiring community groups to apply for CIL funding via parish councils.

 

·       The importance of effective scrutiny of all requests for CIL funding, which should be considered (a) on their own merits eg CCTV and real-time passenger information devices (the latter could quickly become out of date and would require maintenance by the infrastructure provider) and (b) with regard to other requests.

 

·       The deductions from CIL in respect of allocations to parish councils (which varied according to whether there was a neighbourhood development plan (NDP): a 25% share for parishes with a NDP and a 15% without one) and administrative costs.       

 

Mrs Taylor, Mr Carvell and Mrs Shepherd responded where appropriate to members’ questions and comments on points of detail about the foregoing.

 

At the end of the debate the following decision was made by the Council.

 

Decision

 

The Council voted with respect to the recommendation made to it by the Cabinet and on a show of hands it was in favour of making the resolution set out below, with no votes against and no abstentions.

 

RESOLVED

 

That the consultation on the draft Infrastructure Business Plan 2018-23 (in appendix 1 to the agenda report for the Cabinet meeting on 5 September 2017) with the city, town and parish councils, neighbouring local authorities including the South Downs National Park Authority and key infrastructure Delivery Commissioners be approved for a period of six weeks from 2 October to 13 November 2017 subject to the amendments (as set out in the said agenda report) recommended by the Development Plan and Infrastructure Panel.

 

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