Town and Parish Councils across Babergh and Mid Suffolk have received £1.6 million in the latest round of neighbourhood CIL payments – paving the way for a range of vital community facilities and projects.
Developers are charged Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) when building new homes in the districts – enabling local infrastructure to keep pace with housing growth, as well as supporting the councils’ vision for its communities to be attractive, successful, and connected places for people to live and work.
A proportion of this funding is automatically paid to town and parish councils, who are eligiblefor up to 15% of collected funds from their area, subject to a financial cap, with the potentialfor this to increase to 25% if they have successfully adopted a Neighbourhood Plan.
They can then decide how to spend this money to support the development of their local area – ensuring that the funding best meets the needs of the community.
The latest payments, made during April, saw £1,593,662 distributed to 84 town and parish councils across Babergh and Mid Suffolk.
Of this £1,025,936 was allocated to 49 town and parish councils in Mid Suffolk, whilst 35 of Babergh’s town and parish councils received a share of £567,726.
In addition, Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils allocated £4.5 million to 15 CIL bids during 2021/22, allowing funding to be invested in community infrastructure improvement initiatives including a new car park at Woolpit, regeneration of Botesdale Recreation Ground and an extension to Brooklands Primary School in Brantham.
Cllr Clive Arthey, Babergh District Council’s cabinet member for Planning, said: “As well as meeting demand for homes, we want to ensure that our communities can thrive as attractive, successful and connected place for people to live and work. The CIL funding makes a real difference to local communities and helps to provide facilities needed to help keep pace with growth.
Cllr David Burn, Mid Suffolk District Council’s cabinet member for Planning, said: “We know that communities worry about local facilities keeping pace with development, so we work with a wide variety of organisations and partners through the CIL process, including local education and healthcare providers, community groups, towns and parishes to ensure this funding is can be used in the best way to meet local need.”
The latest bid round for communities wishing to apply for future CIL funding – in addition to the money passed automatically to towns and parishes – opened this week. This bid window will close on May 31 and successful bids will receive their funding decision in Autumn 2022, subject to approval by Cabinet.
Further information about how CIL works can be found on the councils website, with details about how the levy has been allocated available on the councils’ award-winning Developer Contributions Database.