Issue - meetings

1.      That the Strategic Procedural Overview for CIL allocation and spending which apportions percentages of the CIL retained by the city council be split into specific themes as detailed in Appendix A of report CAB3385 be agreed.

2.      That the reviewed and refreshed Infrastructure List be agreed (Appendix B).

3.      That the refreshed criteria for considering all CIL bids and the scoring matrix found in Appendix C be agreed.

4.      That the CIL bid timetable is changed from the beginning of the year (1^st January to 31^st March) to 1^st September to 30^th November.

Councillor Porter introduced the report, emphasising that the review of CIL especially reflected the need to ensure that the priorities for CIL funding reflected the priorities in the Council Plan and supporting strategies.

At the invitation of the Leader, Councillors Wallace and Brook addressed Cabinet as summarised briefly below.

Councillor Wallace

He requested confirmation that the council was allowed to use CIL funds for health and education facilities.  The CIL scoring criteria aligned with Council Plan priorities, but was there opportunity to update or refresh the criteria as real-world issues arose? He believed some parts of the district had benefitted disproportionately from the CIL scheme and only one out of the 12 proposed scoring criteria took account of where development had occurred and queried whether the revised criteria were sufficient to re-balance the CIL distribution?

Councillor Brook

The changes to the CIL application criteria was welcomed as provided greater clarity to the process and she also welcomed cross party discussions that had taken place as part of the review.  It was useful to see the detail of expenditure across the district to date on CIL projects.  However, she was disappointed at the continuation of ring-fencing of 90% of funds for specific projects.  There may be local projects that could be completed before a project utilising the ring-fenced sums was even started.  She questioned whether should any large cross parish projects coming forward may require a review of the 90% ringfencing? 

Councillors Porter, together with the CIL Implementation Officer responded to the points raised by members of the public and councillors.  It was reiterated that CIL was spent in communities where these had been impacted by new development and so could be used to support health and education facilities if this was required.  Ring-fencing would be reviewed if large cross parish projects were to come forward and there would be regular review of the infrastructure list which would include consultation with ward and parish councillors.

Cabinet agreed to the following for the reasons set out in the report and outlined above.

RESOLVED:

1.                 That the Strategic Procedural Overview for CIL allocation and spending which apportions percentages of the CIL retained by the city council be split into specific themes as detailed in Appendix A of the report be agreed.

2.                 That the reviewed and refreshed Infrastructure List be agreed (Appendix B).

3.                 That the refreshed criteria for considering all CIL bids and the scoring matrix found in Appendix C be agreed.

4.                 That the CIL bid timetable is changed from the beginning of the year (1January to 31March) to 1 September to 30 November.