Issue - meetings

The Executive Member for Planning Policy and Place Delivery.

RESOLVED – that the Executive:

(i)               Agrees the Council’s second Community Infrastructure Levy Strategic Infrastructure Programme (CIL SIP) 2023-2027 with the amounts to be allocated in each relevant year including the national RICS CIL index (at Annex 4).

(ii)             Agrees that the release of Community Infrastructure Levy funding to infrastructure providers for projects on the Community Infrastructure Levy Strategic Infrastructure Programme (CIL SIP) 2023-2027 (at Annex 4 or as amended by any subsequent annual review) be delegated to the relevant Head of Service for CIL in consultation with the relevant Portfolio Holder for CIL and Chief Finance Officer.

(iii)           Agrees to receive an annual review of the Community Infrastructure Levy Strategic Infrastructure Programme (CIL SIP) 2023-2027, noting the reported delivery progress of projects in the SIP and updating the SIP as appropriate.

Executive Member for Planning Policy and Place Delivery, Councillor Biggs, set out the report on the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Strategic Infrastructure Programme (SIP) 2023-2027 to Executive. This is a charge collected from developers of new house building. Eighty per cent of the CIL funding is strategic under national legislation and must be spent on infrastructure to support development in the borough. Annex 1 set out the list of project bids received for funding. Annex 2 set out the screening and assessment criteria to ensure consistency and transparency, Annex 3 set out the Project Assessment Summary and Annex 4 set out the Council’s priorities for spending the strategic CIL funding.

Infrastructure providers had been invited to bid for a total of up to £18.2m of strategic CIL funding to run during the five-year-period, 2023 to 2027. Seventy-five project bids were received. All bids had been assessed against statutory requirements and the screening and assessment criteria. Almost half of the successful 51 project bids were in Redhill and Horley – the main location for recent development. It was agreed that the Executive would receive an annual update report on progress in transferring CIL funding and the delivery of the SIP projects. No Members of the Council were involved in prioritisation of the projects which was carried out by officers using the transparent scoring assessment process.

Councillor Biggs thanked all the community organisations that had been involved and had bid for this funding. He also thanked officers, including the Principal Planning Development Officer and Head of Planning, for their hard work to bring these bids and successful projects to Executive for approval. The Leader, Councillor Brunt, also expressed thanks to local groups to apply for CIL funding and Members who had encouraged them to bid. He hoped that those groups not successful this time would continue to engage with the Council for future bids.

Overview and Scrutiny Committee had reviewed the report on the CIL assessment process at their meeting on 16 March 2023 and their observations were published as an Addendum (Draft O&S Minute 73).

Executive Members made the following observations and comments:

·        Assessment of business plans discussed at Overview and Scrutiny Committee – it was confirmed that one of the assessment criteria used in assessing all CIL bids was for organisations to include an acceptable business case.

Visiting Members asked questions and made observations in the following points:

·        Scrutiny of the project bids – Overview and Scrutiny Committee Members had requested wider scrutiny of the bids and their full assessments . Annex 1 is the summary of all bids but the detail of at least the successful bids was requested. Annex 2 the screening and assessment criteria had been reviewed by the Committee but not the full details of Annex 3 – the full project bid scoring. Members asked for the application forms that had been submitted as well as the full assessment scoring (which was summarised in Annex 3) to be shared with them so they could see  ...  view the full minutes text for item 69