Timeline for the CIL process in Durham

The CIL stakeholder event on 2^nd March 2012 has been identified as a key event in the CIL process where Durham made public its intention to proceed with a CIL charge; it was well attended in numbers although many organisations had rather junior representation. Many of the issues which featured in later debates were raised here. Following this event, there was also a formal response by the Home Builders Federation (HBF) and again this was indicative of their stance going forward. A draft preliminary charging schedule was prepared in July 2012 (Durham County Council, 2012b) and this was in fact amended before its formal issue in September 2012 (Durham County Council, 2012a) (see figure 6.3), A formal consultation took place between 10^th September and 26^th November 2012 and these responses as they related to the subject of viability, were very limited in number and mainly restricted to house builders, surveyors and planning consultants, these were analysed to

determine the main storylines within the policy making process as discussed later.

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Figure 6.3 Draft Preliminary Charging Schedule (September 2012)

The response and pressure from the HBF did lead to two changes, firstly the role of the consultant HDH seemed to change and be enhanced to deal with the challenge to the planners and secondly also to the establishment of a panel or working group to engage and work with the HBF. It should be pointed out that the proposal to

introduce a CIL charge of £250/sqm on the Durham City Strategic zone in the draft preliminary charging schedule was ambitious and was as high as any local authority was proposing anywhere across the country. This appears to have galvanised the house building industry to work together to respond and strongly challenge what they believed to be a serious threat to the delivery of housing development in Durham, and perhaps setting a precedent to other local authorities in the area. The prospect of CIL as a generator of significant income was also an important expectation of some Council members and local communities at this time.

Between November 2012 and October 2013 there was a period of delay until the issuing of the draft charging schedule in October 2013 (see figure 6.4), which was now preceded and supported by a substantial report by consultants HDH (Durham County Council and HDH, 2013), which prepared several detailed appraisals of sites

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and provided key justifications and evidence in support of the CIL charge proposals and informed the CIL rationale document (Durham County Council, 2013a). The other important change was the removal of the proposals for the Durham City

Strategic zone and replacement by a west Durham area at £30/sqm and a reduction in the rate proposed for the northern area of Durham and Chester-le-street from

£80/sqm to £60/sqm. As can be seen other changes were made to the retail rates and for student housing but the discussion and comments on these were rather limited compared to the engagement with the house building industry. Once again these proposals went out to formal consultation from 16^th October 2013 to 9^th

December 2013 with a greater number of responses to those for the draft preliminary schedule, but broadly similar in nature.

Figure 6.4 Draft Charging Schedule (October 2013)

In December 2013 the Council’s Scrutiny Committee (Durham County Council, 2013b) also investigated the progress of the CIL and introduced some new areas of discussion relating to the proposed CIL charge rates and competition with

neighbouring local authorities. It’s not clear if the change in proposed rates was part of that discussion, or whether members had become aware of developers concerns

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about proposed rates and the risk of stopping development, or that with the reduction in the proposed CIL rates there would be an impact on expected receipts and that CIL was not going to be the same source of funding as initially hoped.

Finally on 19^th March 2014 the Cabinet confirmed the CIL should be submitted to the Inspector for Examination in public (Durham County Council, 2014a) and that this would be undertaken jointly with the Local Plan process, although at the end of a three stage process. Following approval by the full Council the submission was made in April 2014 with a revised rationale report and supported by a full report from HDH (Durham County Council and HDH, 2014). In that report and confirmed in the semi-structured interviews, the role of the working group/panel with the HBF was discussed, as a problematic arena for discussion that it appears to have been. With seemingly amicable meetings haven taken place, with in the Council’s opinion, some tentative agreements having been reached, to find repeatedly after the meeting the HBF representative indicating that there had in fact been no agreement reached.

This remained the position up to the Local Plan Examination in Public, in spite of some attempts to reach agreement on some points before the expected CIL Examination. The role of this group and that of some of its members will be

discussed later as it is a key factor influencing the implementation of the CIL policy in Durham.

The Examination in Public of the Local Plan commenced in September 2014 with the CIL examination anticipated to take place in early 2015, in the event the Interim Inspectors Report issued on 18^th February 2015, placed the CIL process along with the Local Plan process on indefinite hold and unfortunately the CIL Examination was not able to be included in the research (Harold Stephens – Development Plan

Inspector, 2015).