Housing and Planning Minister Caroline Flint announced further details of the Government's plans for a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), which will help to fund new schools, hospitals, transport schemes, libraries, parks and leisure centres.
CIL will be in addition to Government funding and will empower local authorities to levy a charge to help deliver the infrastructure needed to support the development of their area.
CIL will be discretionary and charges will be consulted on, independently examined, and published in a local charging schedule.
The Government will invite further views on the design of the levy through public consultation later this year. This announcement sets out key aspects of the Government's policy:
Local authorities will be empowered to introduce CIL from next year, as a discretionary tool. They will be able to decide whether the circumstances in their area make the introduction of CIL appropriate and at what level to propose setting the charge.
CIL will not result in any "big bang" change for the development industry.
Charges should encourage and enable development, offering certainty to industry while recognising the sensitivities and commercial realities of development. To aid this, charges could be reviewed and revised if economic circumstance change, or may even be automatically linked to economic indicators such as the rate of inflation.
The Government will continue to explore the case for allowing variable rates within one charging schedule.
CIL should only be levied where there is a genuine infrastructure need to support development of the area.
Decisions to levy a CIL should go hand-in-hand with a considered approach to infrastructure planning, as endorsed by Planning Policy Statement 12, to ensure that contributions work towards delivering the future vision of each local area.
As a result of the progress made in developing a locally-led approach to funding sub-regional infrastructure, the Government has decided that the powers for Welsh Ministers and the Secretary of State to charge CIL are no longer required.
Improvements were announced to section 106 agreements, which are used to mitigate the impacts of development proposals and secure affordable housing in new developments. Currently 52% of permissions for new major residential development do not include a section 106 agreement.
Three new steps will help clarify how section 106 agreements can be used effectively and appropriately:
Planners were encouraged to assess the design quality of all housing schemes against Building for Life (BFL) standards after they were endorsed by the Government.
The criteria, developed by CABE, the Home Builders Federation (HBF) and English Partnerships, are included in the DCLG's updated annual monitoring report guidance.
The move aims to help councils meet housing quality aspirations in PPS3. The BFL standards enable projects of more than ten homes to be rated according to 20 criteria of good design. CABE has been pushing for the standards to become a national benchmark after its housing audit found that 80% of homes fail on design.
Design review programme head, Kathy MacEwan said:
"This is a clear way to assess quality nationwide with a consistent basis for analysis. It will allow comprehensive assessment of design quality because councils will have to report findings.
It is a big shift for planning authorities who can use it as a pretty powerful tool to push up the standard of design in applications."
