Agenda item

The Corporate Governance and Audit Committee is requested to note the income and expenditure between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019 in respect of S106 contributions and from CIL, the information on S106 agreements within 2 years of the expenditure target date as set out in Appendix 1 the details of non-financial S106 obligations set out in Appendix 2; and the monitoring information required by the CIL regulations as set out in Appendix 3.

The Committee considered the report circulated with the agenda.

Mrs Dower and Mr Davies were in attendance for this item.  Ms Munns, Team Manager, Strategic Planning West Sussex County Council was also in attendance.

Mr Davies outlined the report.  He apologised that there was no County data included.  This was due to the recent migration of the County Council’s data to a new system, had resulted in only raw data currently being available. 

In terms of the income being received, the amount of Section 106 money received was reducing as it was phased out.  The CIL money collected was starting to be spent.

During the discussion comments were made by members and answers provided by officers:

·           With regard to affordable housing, money was provided to housing associations to build affordable homes.  The money was handed over once the housed were completed. Trigger points were set out in the Section 106 agreements and related to commencement and occupation.  The developer was required to notify the Council when trigger points were reached. If no notification received the Council would need to be proactive in finding out.  There was scope for the Council to be more proactive but this may require more resources.  A meeting was taking place on 2 August 2019 with the Planning Policy, Development Management and the Enforcement teams to discuss the matter.  Mr Dignum explained that with regard to commutable sums for affordable housing, there was no question to the Cabinet or Council agreeing to fund the entire cost of an affordable house. It made small scale developments viable that would not otherwise be taken up by registered social landlords.

·           The Community Engagement Team was responsible for public art expenditure.

·           Most of the Council’s Section 106 agreements had a spending deadline of 10 years from receipt of funds.  Those that did not contain a deadline were given a notional deadline of 5 years.  However, a developer could seek to renegotiate the agreement.  He prepared a quarterly report that set out those contributions with a deadline of less than two years of the expiry date.  This was discussed by the relevant spending officers before being considered by the Strategic Management Team who would take action if required to ensure the funds were spent.

·           The current number of non-financial and financial obligations had increased due to a number of Section 106 agreements made in the last year.  This included the West of Chichester strategic development site, which was a complex document with a large number of obligations, which had not yet reached their trigger points.

·           With regard to sustainable transport, and the recent declaration of a climate change emergency, a comment was made that the table at paragraph 8 showed only a small amount of money was being spent? This related to a historic sum of money following the transfer of responsibility for sustainable transport, approximately ten years ago, from the District Council to the County Council.  The table provided details of money given to the Council in perpetuity.  He provided further details of how the remaining balance would be spent.  Following the introduction of the Community Infrastructure Levy, sustainable transport projects came forward as part of the Infrastructure Business Plan.  Ms Munns explained that the County Council collected sustainable transport for which large amounts of money were collected. A lot of the money collected by the County Council was already allocated for schemes it was delivering.  It was unfortunate that she had not been able to produce the allocation data and stressed that she was in attendance today to reassure everyone that they were transparent and open.  In the strategic development sites the County Council was still allowed to collect Section 106 money.  The Highways Teams worked closely with developers for a whole range of highway improvements.   Mr Davies undertook to incorporate the County data, once the IT issues had been rectified, into the 30 September 2019 for each member’s ward on Section 106 progress. 

·           Appendix 1 included some monies past their expiry date.  Provided have been allocated permitted to spend the money by the expiry date the money was safe.  He agreed that he would amend future reports by adding either a heat map, colour coding or high, medium or low to identify the degree of risk.

·           Community land trusts do they have a future and are they dependant on grants from central Government to make them possible?  This question was best directed to the Housing Team who he was aware were currently looking to support community land trusts.  This information may be in the Council’s Housing Strategy that set out the housing work the Team was trying to achieve.

·           With regard to paragraph 6.8, non-performance of non-financial, obligations and the difficulties mentioned on some sites with developers not meeting their obligations, Mr Davies undertook to provide details to the next meeting of the expected timescales in resolving the issues.  He provided an update on the provision of a Tucan crossing at Graylingwell hospital site, which was now moving forward.

RESOLVED

1)    That the income and expenditure between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019 in respect of S106 contributions and from CIL be noted;

2)    That the information on S106 agreements within two years of the expenditure target date as set out in appendix 1 be noted;

3)    That the details of non-financial S106 obligations set out in appendix 2 be noted; and

4)      That the monitoring information required by the CIL regulations as set out in Appendix 3.