Labour cabinet reluctant to act on the wishes of full council to make Section 106 Policy fair and transparent. pic.twitter.com/JQJkGKeAzN
— Cllr Cahal Burke (@CahalBurke) September 3, 2014
The question above related to both the planning process and
the final implementation which is administered by colleagues in school places
an additional comment is being prepared by them about consultation with heads
and school place planning..From the planning services’ perspective the outcome
of the 2012 Scrutiny report has seen significant work to ensure S106
information is held centrally and is accessible by Members.
Following March Cabinet meeting a reminder of the location
and a brief guide how to use S106 database was sent around all Members. This
database contains information relating to both draft and signed S106 including
a copy of the agreement and a summary of contributions with notes on where this
will be spent.
It is important to note that S106 law requires that infrastructure
needs, including education, must be fully justified in terms of where the money
is spent. In practice this inevitably results in contributions going towards
local needs as a matter of law .Under these circumstances there is no further
need to embed this process in a council policy.
Notwithstanding this, under current legislative
arrangements, particularly the Community Infrastructure Levy, the future will
see changes from April 2015 to how contributions are received and used by the
council. Work is currently being undertaken to prepare how in the medium and
long term the changes will affect the negotiation of future S106 agreements.
In light of the current statutory arrangements and eventual
further changes to S106 arrangements, it is considered unnecessary to introduce
short terms amendments to the S106 process.
