Planning tariff wins the developers vote

One important limitation on PGS is that the number of development sites yielding a sizeable contribution to the financing of public works and services would be relatively limited.

Although they come at it from somewhat different angles, the British Property Federation and English Partnerships reveal a remarkable degree of agreement in their responses to the Government's consultation paper on the Planning Gain Supplement.

As set out at present, the quantum of PGS revenue from developments would be unpredictable; the charges would require payment at the least convenient time for the developer and at best generate intermittent flows of funding for the local authorities whose job it is to provide the infrastructure.

One important limitation on PGS thrown up by these responses is that the number of development sites yielding a sizeable contribution to the financing of public works and services would be relatively limited.

Brownfield or previously developed sites, of relatively low value and entailing high costs for remedial measures, would produce very little by way of PGS, and even that would come at the cost of cutting back developers' contributions under S.106 of the planning legislation.

English Partnerships, by virtue of its position as an adviser on regeneration issues to the Government, takes an even-handed view of both approaches to raising the revenue required to create sustainable communities.

This has been a most useful exercise.

But whether it would be practical to have both options available at the same time must be open to question.

On the basis of its experience in the land market, and the success of its operations at Milton Keynes , the agency clearly prefers the tariff as the most efficient and least painless means of extracting funds from the development process.

This mechanism is in its early days of evolution but has already proved to have a revenue-raising potential acceptable to the development and house building industries.

Once the rate is agreed, the tariff is certain in amount and the bulk of the charge falls at a time when the builder/developer is best able to pay.

English Partnerships have an advantage denied to most local authorities, the power to forward fund the infrastructure.

PGS is designed to produce funding more up front, but as the papers by EP and BPF demonstrate most graphically, it won't work like that in practice.

These valuable clarifications are the product of the consultative process, and the Government would do well to pay serious attention to the voices of experience expressed so clearly in these responses.

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