Issue - meetings

Introduced by Graham Palmer (Infrastructure Strategy and Commissioning Lead) who discussed the narrative report which outlined information on developer funds which had been secured, allocated, received, and spent within the County Council and broke down the numbers to show real project development.

In response to the Chair, Graham Palmer advised that the report did not cover time scales on delivery of projects due to the complexity of each but was able to explain to members how project timing worked generically. He advised Councillors that he would welcome any questions outside of the meeting on specific projects.  Mark Ryder added that it would be difficult to add all delivery timeframes to all projects in the report; however, specific areas of interest could be requested outside of this. He went on to explain developer funding, infrastructure, and trigger points of projects.

Councillor Pemberton commented on development visibility at a division level. He continued, stating that a case study on a large-scale development for members to understand the process would be beneficial to the committee as they would have a better understanding and be able to ask relevant questions next time they were faced with a big build in their area.

Graham Palmer agreed with the comments and would take the suggestions on when building the next report.

In response to Councillor Fradgley, Graham Palmer advised that each Section 106 funding had an expiry date which was tracked by the Council. This was to ensure that the funding was spent or allocated to a project as not to lose it. He added that no money was returned to developments in 22/23 due to funding expiry. Answering Councillor Fradgley’s supplementary question, Graham Palmer confirmed that the unallocated funding displayed in the table was in various stages of being allocated to the project it was collected for.

In response to the Chair, Graham Palmer advised that when a section 106 is signed, indexation is added to each amount from when it was signed till the funds are received.

In reply to the Chair’s question, Graham Palmer advised that no funds he was aware of were returned in 23/24 but close monitoring and checks were in place to ensure that these risks are captured.

Mark Ryder added that this report provided examples on projects that were delivered and said for the next report. it would include a site-specific project containing a timeline on a particular development.

Agreed

The Committee noted and commented on the Annual Infrastructure Funding Statement (AIFS) 2022/23 at Appendix 1 and this accompanying narrative report.