A report was received from the Head of Regeneration and Development.  It was a requirement of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) regulations to establish a CIL governance structure.  This would oversee the collection, auditing and spending of CIL monies.  The protocol outlined the relationship of the Local Plan and other strategies to the Infrastructure Delivery Plan and the CIL Infrastructure Regulation 123 List.  The Council had already committed £5.85m of CIL and other developer contributions to the Metropolitan Line Extension.  This would leave limited funding for other infrastructure based on current income projections.  There would be 5% of CIL income retained towards the administrative costs.

The Mayor introduced the report and commented that government legislation meant that local government’s position had been weakened to be able to receive money from developers to ameliorate the impact of development.  The income from CIL would not be sufficient for Watford for this purpose and this was the same nationally. 

The Head of Regeneration and Development further explained that when CIL was first discussed it was supposed to recoup 80% of the costs of infrastructure for new development, it was now unlikely to make 20%. This was due to a watering down of the regulations.  There was a tension between development viability and the cost of infrastructure. 

The report set out the governance structure for CIL.  There was a delivery plan in place which explained how the council would allocate any receipts received to key pieces of infrastructure from the Metropolitan Line Extension to school provision. There would be an annual report to Cabinet.  There was a discussion in the report about the proportion of CIL receipts that went to a neighbourhood.  As Watford was one town, unlike other councils which might have areas consisting of several towns, it was effectively a neighbourhood. To date there was potentially £800,000 in CIL liable developments.  Developers only had to pay once they had started building.  The governance arrangements would begin from 1 February and Watford Borough Council was ahead of many other local authorities who could lose out on CIL receipts.

RESOLVED

1. that the CIL governance framework set out in the report be taken forward and form the basis upon which the Council would manage the spending of CIL receipts.
   
   
2. that Cabinet has overarching responsibility for the annual reporting of CIL and the allocation of CIL monies.