Facilitating Local Authorities

The discursive struggle between the “supporting growth” and “value capture”

discourses is also reflected in the way the supporting storylines conceptualize the capture of value to fund infrastructure provision. The policy making initially was couched in terms of increasing value capture to provide more infrastructure to support new development and growth, but also to compensate communities and provide more sustainable development, it also provided greater certainty of infrastructure provision for developers.

“Policies should reflect better both the positive and negative externalities associated with housing. This means the environmental costs of housing should be considered alongside the social and economic benefits, ensuring that land is used efficiently, that the most valuable undeveloped land is

preserved and that development promotes sustainable communities.” (Barker, 2004 p27)

There was clearly a shared objective of facilitating local authorities to provide infrastructure for growth but with a wider objective around redistribution of wealth.

Over time the storyline of “facilitating local authorities” has become more dominant in

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terms of defining the meaning of the policy making over the “raising more funding”

storyline. The emphasis has been again on facilitating delivery of development over other policy objectives. The CIL policy introduced three important points in this respect which were significant changes to the PGS proposals.

Firstly, the Plan-led” approach, this tied the provision of infrastructure to the Local Plan process and to the growth strategy within those proposals. But this also

restricted the flexibility of the local authority over what to spend the money on, to that of specific infrastructure to support specific development.

“The CIL should be ‘plan led’. This means that it should support the delivery of (for example) the homes and jobs envisaged in an authority’s development plan. CIL spending will need to be underpinned by a costed list of

infrastructure projects that are needed to support development. The Bill allows Regulations to set out the procedure which should be followed in preparing such a list, which may include consultation with those affected, including the infrastructure providers themselves.”(CLG, 2008 p13)

In later CIL policy the introduction of the 123 list was a further tightening of this defining of the infrastructure in terms of what it can be spent on.

“When a charging authority introduces the levy, section 106 requirements should be scaled back to those matters that are directly related to a specific site, and are not set out in a regulation 123 list. For transparency, charging authorities should have set out at examination how their section 106 policies will be varied, and the extent to which they have met their section 106 targets”.

(DCLG, 2014a p52)

“The charging authority’s proposed approach to section 106 contributions should be set out at examination and should be based on evidence. Where a regulation 123 list includes project-specific infrastructure, the charging

authority should not seek any planning obligations in relation to that infrastructure.” (DCLG, 2014a p53)

Secondly, “striking the balance” also reflects a shift, from a general tax proposal of PGS, where no tax rate was actually proposed, although reference was vaguely

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made to the need to strike a balance even then, but from the outset was relevant to CIL.

“The Government wants CIL funds to unlock development. But if the levy is set too high, it might cause some development to become unviable. Because it is the purpose of CIL to ensure that more development is delivered, the level of CIL must be set to ensure it supports and does not prevent development. In setting charges, charging authorities will therefore need to take account of land value uplifts in their area.” (CLG, 2008 p 4)

When the CIL proposals were introduced the notion of striking a balance emerged and effectively restricted the local authority to take account of the impact on viability and deliverability which in 2010 was in the local authorities view, later restricted further to a balance based on evidence.

Finally, the “cumulative policy burden” was introduced as a further emphasis on delivery and capping value capture for policy objectives in a wider sense, initially set out in paragraph 173 for the National Planning Policy Framework (DCLG, 2012b).

This also featured in the Harman Report guidance and has become an important influence on policy practice.

“Some may be deemed to be critical for development to be acceptable in planning terms and some may be more discretionary and/or only applied to certain types of development or geographies. Through discussing this, appropriate trade-offs can be made to ensure that the cumulative policy burden does not make the plan undeliverable.” (Local Housing Delivery Group, 2012 p 33)

The outcome of the discursive struggle in this area of policy development has again been dominated by the “supporting growth” discourse in defining the meaning of the policy and establishing “discursive closure” (Hajer 2006). The storyline positions the local authority as facilitators of developers as key deliverers by providing certainty over infrastructure provision. The clustering of knowledge sources are around the Plan-led need for growth, identifying the growth and new development needed and the infrastructure required to support that growth, as set out in the Infrastructure Delivery Plan (IDP) and 123 list. Knowledge sources about the viability of

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development and of policy impacts also become relevant when assessing the CIL rate to set.

The change in national policy guidance in this area has been quite extensive and accordingly the impact on practices have been significant on how the local authority seeks to secure its value capture income and facilitate the provision of infrastructure.

Policy practices around the Plan-led approach, the preparation of the Infrastructure Delivery Plan, the “striking the balance” and “cumulative policy burden” in setting the rates are discussed below.