Chichester District Council collected more the £4m of Community Infrastructure Levy from developers in 2023/24 but only handed out £127,000 for projects.
The levy – known as CIL – is a charge that councils can set on developments to help pay for things such as transport improvements and schools.
During the same period, more than £4m of Section 106 agreements were signed, £542,000 of contributions were received, and more then £912,000 were spent on projects.
The agreements – known as S106 – are similar to CIL in that they help pay for infrastructure to reduce the impact of new development on an area. But the S106s are bespoke and can be negotiated, while CIL is a charge per square meter based on a published tariff schedule.
The figures were shared during a meeting of the district council’s corporate governance & audit committee.
While members were told that the gap between S106 agreements signed and the money received was ‘normal’, things were a bit different for the CIL.
Simon Barlow, the council’s principal infrastructure & CIL officer, said the council was ‘doing a good job of getting things spent in good time’ when it came to S106.
But he recognised concerns about the huge gap between income and use when it came to CIL.
He told the committee that some of the projects to which CIL funds had been allocated were ‘progressing a little slower than we’d envisaged’ – with many of the problems stemming from the pandemic and the subsequent inflation in build costs.
Questions were asked about how things could be sped up, with concerns raised about the perception that the council was ‘sitting on’ money when there was a need to build infrastructure.
Mr Barlow said: “I think the great weakness we have with a lot of the infrastructure to be funded from CIL is that, as an authority, we aren’t in charge of the delivery.
“So all we can do is work with infrastructure providers and say ‘this is the money we’ve got, we invite you to work up a scheme which helps us meet our goals’.
“Whether or not they can then deliver what they said they could deliver is another question.”
Referring to projects in the Infrastructure Business Plan, he said the council had received assurances from West Sussex County Council – which is involved in some of the projects – that work was going on behind the scenes.
He added: “It’s just none of it has got to the point where they would be comfortable asking us to send them any money for it yet.”
