Our monitoring of highway S106 deals is too lax, admits Bucks

PLANNING

New developments: council struggling to keep track

New developments: council struggling to keep track

Buckinghamshire County Council is toughening up how it monitors highway planning obligations struck with developers following a critical report by councillors.

Buckinghamshire’s economy, transport and environment select committee has voiced alarm about lax procedures for monitoring the highway elements of Section 106 agreements since a council-wide Section 106 monitoring officer post was abolished in 2012.  

“The loss of the post was clearly an error and S106 has suffered due to the lack of strategic oversight, most notably within the highways department,” says the committee’s report. “When we first spoke to highways over a year ago we were dismayed by the lack of records and monitoring they had.” 

The committee says there was no robust monitoring of the commencement of developments or other trigger points for developer contributions to be paid. “This resulted in the service area having to hire a consultant over the past year to identify all the agreements and start a recording/management database similar to the one the education department use.”

The committee says the highways department has “come a long way” since then in collating and recording S106 agreements. A spreadsheet called the ‘master deed agreement list’ has been compiled and monthly updates of new agreements are supplied by the council’s legal & democratic services department. 

“Whilst these databases do provide a means of recording data they do not resolve the ongoing human interaction with assessment and monitoring of the agreements,” say the councillors. “Thus there is a continuing and vital resource implication to ensure this work is not lost and is not only utilised but is expanded and enhanced.” 

The committee says that if procedures are not improved, the council “risks having to repay S106 money that is sat unspent in reserves due to deadlines for project delivery not being met”. It may also miss payments that are due, and it risks reputational damage “as developers will see it as a light touch and possibly start looking at other agreements, looking to make claims”.

The committee was impressed by the centralised approach to  monitoring undertaken by neighbouring Oxfordshire County Council. Oxfordshire has a 12-strong infrastructure funding team that conducts negotiations with developers and monitors the resultant obligations. 

Buckinghamshire’s cabinet heard this week that work has already begun to merge the S106 databases held by its transport and education departments. “This will continue in order to provide a council-wide approach and central register for all agreements,” the cabinet resolved. A new headquarters post has been created that includes oversight of S106 agreements. The council  will also review how other councils resource their S106 teams. 

Discuss this at Future Highways 2015