Agenda item - Infrastructure Development Plan and CIL - Plan for future years

58. Infrastructure Development Plan and CIL – Plan for future years.

58.1    Cllr Taylor explained that the Infrastructure Delivery Plan (IDP) and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) are related. The existing IDP was published in 2020 and lays out the city’s infrastructure requirements across social, physical and green infrastructure. It forms part of the budget setting process. The IDP identifies projects and needs that are required in the city; £587m worth of needs have been identified and there is only £205m of funding available. CIL is associated with planning and the development process and replaces Section 106. The income received through CIL is split between the strategic, Citywide CIL and the neighbourhood CIL. They will have to use CIL to support already identified projects that are vital for the city. Neighbourhood CIL bids go into the Better Brighton & Hove Fund where the neighbourhoods decide what they want the money spent on. 931 ideas were submitted at the last consultation. There is a variance of neighbourhood CIL across different parts of the city so they worked out an average to make it fair and used part of the Citywide CIL to top up each ward to ensure each one has the same minimum amount. Citywide CIL has £400k to date with a forecast of £700k and Neighbourhood CIL has £49k with a forecast of £90k. A further round of Neighbourhood CIL will take place at the beginning of 2027 once the pots have accrued more funding providing there is enough funds to do so. They received a positive response with lots of great ideas and will now go through them with the ward councillors to see which ones are viable. They will look for other avenues for those ideas that cannot be funded via CIL. This is all connected to the City Plan process which is much broader dealing with allocation of land across the city.

58.2    Cllr Meadows said in the report it stated they identified £587bn. Cllr Taylor corrected this as £587m and there was a misprint in the report. Cllr Meadows said that Neighbourhood CIL feels like a resident’s wishlist with ideas such as a tram rail in Patcham and she felt that expectations need to be managed when realistically CIL will fund much smaller things like a new bench. The IDP refresh states it will remove long term unfunded projects and asked what these were; and she questioned why some developers for major planning applications won’t be paying CIL. Cllr Taylor said he thought a tram was a good idea but it wouldn’t be able to be funded through CIL as it’s too small. Residents know what is possible and what isn’t; a lot of CIL goes towards the look and feel of the area with things like benches, new bins, rain gardens etc but there will be some disappointment and not everyone will get what they want. The long term unfunded projects have been in the mix for a while and there seems to be not much point including them when they have no allocated funding. Nicola Hurley explained that there are some nil CIL rated development sites such as the King Alfred site. There are four sites in the city that are nil CIL rated that were examined at the time of introducing CIL and during the examination it was concluded developers don’t need to pay CIL on these sites. This is for reasons such as contaminated land, sea defences needed and in the case of the King Alfred funding a leisure centre. Also there is no CIL liable on affordable housing units.  Mark Strong confirmed that a tram would costs billions.

58.3    Mark Strong asked how much engagement they had on the list for the IDP and that some of the ideas for CIL were not technically “infrastructure” such as revenue based proposals and saunas and said they need to make it clearer what the money can actually be spent on. He also asked about cross referencing ideas from the community with projects already being worked on at the Council. Cllr Taylor said the Neighbourhood CIL is more flexible than the Citywide CIL and does allow for some revenue based projects. Cross referencing across the Council is a large task but it’s important to check existing projects that already have funding and use that first before CIL, they are currently talking to all the relevant departments.

58.4    Mark Strong asked about the process once the officers have compiled the lists, whether this goes back to ward councillors and whether community groups would be able to have some input and engage with residents. Cllr Taylor said it is a ward member led process and the preferences would be what is presented to residents.

58.5    Cllr Sykes said the refresh of the IDP is a good opportunity to look at climate resilience and net zero commitments; and reported that apparently Southern Water have a large amount of money to invest in the city. The format of the IDP is a summary of individual sector based spreadsheets which will tie together with the Council Plan and he asked if there would be a narrative expanding on the individual projects so people can have more information; he was surprised not to see Hove footbridge on the list. The process worked well in his ward but he started the process too early and would like the timeline and process clarified for the next round. Cllr Taylor said that it is a fairly high level document that doesn’t supersede anything that already exists. Due to a short timeframe, it wasn’t felt necessary to do a more in depth narrative. Southern Water’s plans may have changed as they had asked if the Council would invest into their programme. The Council has put some money towards Hove footbridge but it is a complicated situation. He acknowledged the timeline for CIL was expected to flow more quickly that it actually did and took on board the need for clarified process and timeline.

58.6    Cllr Fowler asked when the last time things could be added to the list as she would have liked a rain garden in her ward due to having a lot of water flow. Nicola Hurley said they have written to ward councillors with the current list and they are liaising with relevant departments at the moment but it will come back to ward councillors one more time.

58.7    Cllr Fishleigh said she isn’t a fan of CIL because under Section 106 all the money could have been spent locally and now they only get 15%. New additions such as a bus shelter and new pavement caused by new developments should come from the 85% CIL and not the 15%. Nicola Hurley said that Section 106 regime was more restrictive and could not be spent on anything, only mitigating the impacts from the development site. CIL is more flexible and doesn’t have to be spent within a certain timeframe or paid back if not spent. Cllr Taylor said there are wards in the city with no eligible development sites so they need to balance strategic needs across the city and local needs.

58.8    Cllr Winder asked if there was a possibility of having a citywide view of everything, identifying deprived areas that need significant input and phase projects into a larger scale to ensure that it benefits everyone who needs it. Cllr Taylor said every area gets a project and a minimum amount of CIL. They can look at the suggestions on a citywide basis but they know they can’t fund them all; what is useful is that these ideas form a mini public informed plan for each area, identifying the needs and wishes of the community. 

58.9    Mark Strong said that there are quite a few proposals on the list from councillors for their own wards, some have put “submitted on behalf of residents”, and citywide voluntary groups will have a view on these ideas. Cllr Taylor said he collected ideas in the comments section of his Facebook post and submitted them into the form himself; he didn’t differentiate between a resident idea and councillor idea. In the next stage they will look into putting a call out to community groups to submit ideas as a group and send to a specific email address to meet this request.

58.10 RESOLVED – that the report be noted