After 10 years or so of talk and not much action, the first few local authority CIL plans have been adopted and before long the payment of levies on commencement of development will become a familiar part of the planning process.

Local Planning Authorities can collect the levy, in £££’s per square metre, from all schemes of 100 square metres (net) and all new market dwellings (even if smaller than 100 square metres). The trigger for payment is commencement of development, although some councils may allow payment in instalments.

Changes of use, charity landowners and affordable housing are exempt. Levy receipts can be used for improvements to transport, flood defences, schools, hospitals, health facilities, parks and leisure centres. There is no longer a requirement to link the contribution to the development. So monies can be spent wherever the council sees fit. The first few CIL plans are as follows:

Following the earlier announcement in January about new rates for solar installations, further consultation documents have been issued today by the DECC, which supplement their earlier announcement on solar and starts a consultation process on FITS for all other renewable technologies. The biggest reduction in payments proposed is in relation to small wind schemes up to 1.5 kW capacity with smaller reductions for schemes above that. Hydro and AD schemes will be largely unaffected if the proposals go through unchanged. The consultation also explains that payments will start to fall year on year from 2014 onwards and considers whether the regime should be different for community (to be defined) based schemes. The consultation can be found at:

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/Renewable_ener/feedin_tariff/feedin_tariff.aspx

Third party rights of appeal have never quite gone away in Scotland with the Government always conscious that although many of the changes have helped third party involvement in the planning process, there are still situations where decisions warrant challenging and in the past the cost of judicial review has been prohibitive thus acting as a check to those who would wish to take matters further. The Government is, therefore, considering introducing new rules of court for the making of Protective Expenses Orders, which will have the effect of capping the amount of legal costs that a challenger would have to pay the other side, if they lose, at £5,000. Proposals also include the introduction of a similar cap of £30,000 on the defending party's liability to pay the challenger's costs. The consultation closes on April 3, 2012.