Agenda item

To receive and consider a consultation from West Oxfordshire District Council.

The Committee received and considered the consultation on the West Oxfordshire District Council Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Draft Charging Schedule 2020.

Members were concerned that the schedule had laid out plans for zero-rated CIL in the strategic areas of the Local Plan 2031, of which Witney was included. This would result in North and East Witney Developers not having to pay towards town-wide infrastructure in the future. While the Committee noted that other areas had also favoured this approach to not hamper site viability, members agreed that Witney was an attractive place to develop so were confident that a CIL charge would not have an adverse effect.

RESOLVED:          that the CIL Charging Schedule be noted, and the following consultation response be submitted to West Oxfordshire District Council.

Witney Town Council welcomes the opportunity to comment on the CIL charging schedule for future developments and recognises that Witney is an attractive place to live and therefore develop. Further housing is already agreed in the West Oxfordshire Local Plan 2031 within and just outside Witney, but this should not be to the detriment of the town’s already stretched infrastructure. Due to its geographical location, transport links and other welcoming factors, the Town Council has confidence that if CIL was to be agreed for larger as well as smaller strategic developments, developers would still be interested so therefore the Town Council objects to the proposed charging schedule.

Clear, understandable data and models of various non-zero-rated CIL rates for larger sites as part of this consultation would have provided more insight. The marginal negative calculations, which seem to be in contrast to and diverge from the conclusions of the Local Plan, are questionable inasmuch as they have inflexible land prices and do not anticipate how the market will react to CIL rates.  The effects of Brexit and Covid-19 have had on prices is unknown, but could be significant, so a second independent valuation should be sought as soon as possible.

CIL benefits the whole community and Witney is already significantly underfunded in terms of sports, arts and youth provision for instance and these funds would contribute to those needed areas. While Section 106 funds have been greatly welcomed in previous years, there are projects which have fallen through (Cogges Link Road) where allocated funds have been lost due to their specific nature. CIL would offer more protection and value for money against this happening. In the Town Council’s opinion, CIL as a proportion of contributions collected from developers would also make the transparency and transfer of developer contributions more efficient than the current Section 106 process.

Overall, Witney Town Council is concerned that these proposals in their current form appear to be favouring the interests of landowners, developers and their profits over the infrastructure of the town. While these may help deliver the long-term interests of the District Council, they result in the avoidance of developers paying CIL and a denial of discretionary funds to town and parish councils from the large developments that will impact them the most.