Agenda item

The Panel is invited to comment on the Community Infrastructure Levy Spend Allocation Report.

Executive Councillor: T Sanderson

By means of a report by the Chief Planning Officer (a copy of which was appended in the Minute Book) the Community Infrastructure Levy Spend Allocation report was presented to the Panel.

Following a question relating to the funding of the project in St Neots to improve walkways within Regatta Meadows and cycleways in the Riverside Park, the Panel heard that the project had been deemed complete in regards of the CIL funding as this part of the project had been fulfilled. It was noted that there may be other park improvements ongoing outside of the CIL funded project using other funding streams and that the team would feedback an update on this following the meeting.

Councillor Martin was pleased to see that the Bury Guardroom project had been recommended for approval during the round and noted that the resulting economic development for the area would be good news. He also noted the good quality report and the application for the Sawtry swimming pool which provided a great opportunity to buck the national trend on closures of pools.

It was observed that none of the applications under £100,000 had been recommended for approval. The Panel heard that the team works closely with parishes to assist in their application process and does this through a variety of channels to maximise engagement It was referenced the team work closely with the parishes and there is Town and Parish Forum coming up which will provide further opportunity for discussions. It was noted that the team were building on past successes and would be introducing an enquiry form for parishes to get initial feedback prior to application submission, this would be made live prior to the next funding round to provide further support and a second surgery would be held.

Appreciation was expressed for the development of the reports over the past years, including the lessons learned from the past round, and the Panel were advised, following a question, that unsuccessful applicants did receive feedback on their applications directly from the team. The Panel heard that the report included part of the indicative scoring mechanism and that this could be developed for future reports. It was also noted that the report was presenting the technical and professional opinions in relation to the applications and that the Panel were not expected to debate the decisions themselves. It was agreed that the team would pick up queries around the scoring mechanism outside of the meeting.

In response to an enquiry asking both the Executive and Officers to reflect on the new interim governance process, the Panel heard from the Executive Councillor, that in general the quality of applications submitted were excellent and that the process would be fine tuned prior to the next funding round which was anticipated later in the year. The Panel also heard that officers would look to develop the work engaging with parishes in supporting smaller applications and would look to continue the collaborative work already underway. It was noted that the governance had worked particularly well with the larger applications and that the key factor missing in the small projects was the link to growth.

The Panel questioned what risk management would be in place to manage the CIL process alongside Local Government Reform, following which, the Panel heard that the team were monitoring the risk and were continuing with business as usual until otherwise advised.

Following the discussion, it was

RESOLVED

that Cabinet be encouraged to consider the comments from Overview and Scrutiny when making a decision upon the recommendations within the report.