REPORT OF THE

EXECUTIVE MEMBER

EDUCATION

PART II

DEVELOPERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS EDUCATION FACILITIES

1. Over the past ten years or so, there has been an acceptance that developers should contribute towards the cost of mitigating the impact of their development on local facilities and infrastructure. Central Government guidance and consultation papers on the planning system indicate that it is reasonable for contributions to be requested towards education facilities required as a direct consequence of development. This can result in a significant addition to the capital resources available to meet the need for additional school places and, in some cases, improvements to the suitability of existing school provision to enable it to cater for increased demand. There is scope for such contributions to enhance the County Council's capital programme by some £2 million per year, an amount which will increase when building starts within proposed major development areas.

2. Developers' contributions are negotiated as part of the process for the grant of planning permission for development, which is primarily the responsibility of the relevant district or borough council. There has accordingly been consultation with the district councils in Hampshire on the ways in which contributions towards education facilities required as a consequence of development can be assessed. Up to now it has been normal practice to seek contributions towards primary school places arising from developments of 100 units or more. There is an increasing tendency towards smaller areas of infill development and one of the main changes proposed is that the threshold for seeking contributions should be reduced to sites of ten or more dwellings. It is not always the case that new housing development necessitates new educational provision - in some cases there are deficiencies in suitability or capacity as regards existing school classrooms, and it is entirely appropriate that developers' contributions should be used to remedy these and thereby enable existing schools to cope more adequately with the numbers of children. Although developers' contributions have so far been sought mainly towards primary school provision, there is no reason why the same principle should not apply to secondary schools, where a direct impact from the development on pupil numbers can be shown. This situation may well arise with the major development areas.

3. The Executive Member for Education has therefore agreed a policy statement "Developers' Contributions towards Education Facilities - March 2003" as a statement of the County Council's policy on education contributions. Local planning authorities can then be asked to apply these principles to current planning applications and they can also incorporate them in their own planning policy on contributions. In addition the County Council is developing a corporate approach towards contributions to all services where there is an impact from development. To this end a policy statement is being prepared, which meets the needs of all services and proposes a co-ordinated, more direct approach to negotiations with developers. The intention is that this will in due course be adopted as Supplementary Planning Guidance which will give it greater weight when planning applications are being considered by the district councils. The paper on education contributions would then be incorporated as an appendix to that document.

4. Copies of the detailed policy statement have been placed in the Members' Rooms.

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