by Sima Odedra, Principal Planning Solicitor

The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is a planning charge that has been in force since 2010 via The Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 (“2010 Regulations”). It has recently been subject to a government consultation and the outcome of this consultation has resulted in the Community Infrastructure Levy (Amendment) (England) (No.2) Regulations 2019 (“2019 Regulations”) being laid before parliament on 4 June 2019. Subject to approval by parliament the 2019 Regulations will come into force on 1 September 2019.

At this stage the following amendments to the 2010 Regulations may be of particular interest to local planning authorities. This is not an exhaustive list as a number of other changes have also been made:

• Being able to calculate CIL where a section 73 permission leads to an increase or decrease in CIL liability – Regulation 5.
• Imposing a surcharge on developers if they fail to provide a commencement notice instead of CIL reliefs being lost – Regulation 6.
• Inserting Regulation 121A and Schedule 2 which will require local authorities to publish an annual infrastructure funding statement setting out how much CIL is collected, how much is spent and what it is spent on for CIL charging authorities and similar provision in relation to planning obligations pursuant to section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 – Regulation 9.
• Inserting Regulation 121B requiring parish councils to report the amount of CIL receipts it has received – Regulation 9.
• Amending Regulation 122 to allow provision for monitoring fees in section 106 agreements – Regulation 10.
• Removing Regulation 123 which currently restricts the number of planning obligations which a local authority can enter into in relation to the funding of relevant infrastructure – Regulation 11.