Report FSD19004

The Committee considered a report providing an update on Section 106 Agreements.  The detail of every s.106 agreement was reflected in the appendices to the report with the appendices covering the period from March 2003 to date with details of over 356 sealed legal agreements.

In opening the discussion the Chairman noted that much of the Part 2 (exempt) report was a repetition of the information included in the Part 1 report.  Noting that in the interests of transparency the aim was to have as much information in Part 1 as possible, the Chief Planner agreed to look at reducing the amount of information that was provided in future Part 2 reports.

In response to a question concerning utilising the funds that had been received in lieu of housing, the Chief Planner confirmed that £3.2m was available to the Housing Team.  The Committee emphasised the need for more affordable housing in the Borough and Members stressed that any s.106 money received in lieu of housing needed to fund the provision of much needed affordable housing.

The Committee noted that the Council’s Regeneration Team were developing a project at Norman Park running track that would utilise the £300k contribution towards sport that had been received as part of the Kent County Cricket Ground Application.

In respect of the Healthcare contributions, a Member noted that there had been delays in building a health centre in Bromley.  Once built, this would be a valuable community resource and the Member stressed the need to ensure that the funding for such community resources was protected.  The Director of Finance confirmed that there were mechanisms in place to ensure that the s.106 funds were utilised for health facilities.

In response to questions from Members, the Chief Planner confirmed that when s.106 obligations were agreed the relevant service area was immediately made aware of the obligation.  There was a further notification when the money was received.  In relation to s.106 funding for educational purposes, the Local Authority tied to ensure that there was flexibility with the use of the funding.  However, sometimes there were geographical limitations written into agreements.  The Committee noted that the use of s.106 funding was agreed using the same decision making process as other forms of Council spending.

Turing to the issue of the use of s.106 funding for health facilities, the Committee noted that when the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) came into operation there would not be as many limitations place on the use of funding and as a result of this there would be more open competition for funds.  The Director of Finance highlighted that going forward this would be monitored.  As a result of the changes currently being made to the structure of local Health Services, and the merger of Clinical Commissioning Groups into a larger regional organisation, would require close monitoring to ensure that resources received for facilities in Bromley remained in Bromley.

In response to a question concerning how s.106 funds could be spent, the Director of Corporate Services confirmed that during the negotiation process the Council sought to ensure that there was as much flexibility with the use of funds as possible.  Conversely, developers would be seeking to narrow down the use of the funds as much as possible.  The Committee were reminded that s.106 funds were used to address any local consequences arising from the granting of planning permission.  Whenever s.106 funds were received the aim was to spend the funds to mitigate against the consequences of the planning permission, but Officers also sought to apply the agreement that had been negotiated as flexibly as possible.

The Chairman noted that it was important for individual PDS Committees to review their areas as much as possible.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.