Issue - items at meetings - COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE LEVY

The Joint Committee at its meeting on 13 March 2019 agreed the arrangement for local communities to identify local community infrastructure projects that CIL money could be used and how Ward Councillors could make a request to the Council to secure CIL money to enable the delivery of the projects.

The Committee agreed to review the process after one year and set this for the meeting in June 2020. Unfortunately, this was cancelled due to Covid 19, so this review has been carried forward to this meeting.

Woking Joint Committee agreed that:

(i) The current arrangement for the use of CIL money to deliver local community infrastructure projects should continue subject to the proposed recommendations of the report set out in recommendations (ii) to (iv).

(ii) The Flowchart attached to the Overview and Scrutiny report to this meeting is user-friendly, provides clarity on the arrangement for local communities to use their CIL money and should be circulated to all Borough Ward Councillors and County Divisional Councillors (subject to any amendments approved by the Joint Committee).

(iii) A Sub-Group should be set up to determine applications submitted by Ward Councillors to use CIL money to deliver community infrastructure projects. The Sub-Group should be able to determine applications outside Joint Committee meetings and approve applications up to the value of £10,000.

(iv) The Joint Committee will promote the revised CIL arrangement to Councillor and encourage them to be proactive in engaging with residents on where the CIL money could be best used.

Reason for decision:

To enable local communities to use their CIL money to deliver local community infrastructure projects.

Declarations of Interest: None

Officers attending: Ernest Amaoko, Planning Policy Manager, WBC

Petitions, Public Questions, Statements: None

The Planning Policy Manger (PPM) presented a report the review of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funding. The Officer review had taken account of feedback from Members (Overview and Scrutiny Committee) and funding bids received during the year. The main concerns were the delay between Joint Committees, addressed by the recommendation for a sub group to approve smaller bids and the appeal process, which has been addressed in the report. Members were asked to volunteer for the sub group by contacting the Committee Officer.

Members raised concerns that larger funding bids were difficult and the responsibility for the project management of large bids was unclear. It was noted that the process allowed flexibility and that professional project managers could be employed and paid for from the funds. Ward Councillors were still concerned about the overall responsibility, but would work with Officers on each individual scheme as it arose. An application form with a checklist was also noted as helpful and a draft would be circulated for agreement. Cllr Graham Chrystie strongly disagreed with the review report but no amendments to the recommendations were put forward.

More work will be done on advertising the funds available, with CIL being more prominent on the webpages of the Joint Committee (both SCC and WBC sites) and the Borough website.