Lead Councillor Admits Unspent CIL Fund Problem Is ‘Not the Outcome We Want’

Published on: 5 Apr, 2025
Updated on: 6 Apr, 2025

Waverley CIL protests earlier this week Waverley Conservative Council Group

By Chris Caulfield

local democracy reporter

Millions in unspent community cash is sitting in Waverley Borough Council’s coffers after it received just a handful of valid bids to use it.

Currently, there is more than £11 million of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funding on Waverley Borough Council’s books waiting to be used.

This is money developers have paid as part of the planning process to support community projects in an area – but, after just 15 valid submissions were handed in, the council issued a statement expressing “disappointment at the number of applications submitted for the latest round of community infrastructure funding”.

Opposition councillors said it showed the CIL process at Waverley was not serving residents – and that leadership had six years to solve the problem.

The latest round of CIL funding was discussed at the Tuesday April 1 executive committee of Waverley Borough Council where £5.4 million was allocated to nine projects.

Among them included £2 million towards more secondary school places in Farnham, £1m for walking and cycling routes and £1.1 million for a new skate park, car park extension and electric vehicle charging points in Cranleigh.

Cllr Mark Merryweather

Cllr Mark Merryweather (Lib Dem, Farnham Moor Park), portfolio holder for finance, assets and property said: “The allocation of strategic community infrastructure levy funding has been done through the process that was introduced after the local CIL regulations were adopted by the council in 2018.

“Robust and transparent as that process is, it is also competitive and possibly off-putting to potential bidders, which is why we have barely been able to allocate half of the available funding pot this year.

“This is clearly not the outcome we want for our residents.”

He said the council works closely to support bids but that there was only so much it could do.

He added: “We must look to reform the system if we are to support the submission of more high-quality bids that deliver meaningful improvements for local people.”

Opposition members said this is what leadership should have been doing for years.

Cllr Jane Austin

Cllr Jane Austin (Con, Bramley & Wonersh) leads the Conservative group at Waverley and called on CIL committee groups to be more politically and geographically representative.

She said: “CIL at Waverley is not serving its residents. Here we see Waverley’s executive bizarrely criticising its own CIL allocation policy.

“Waverley has one of the highest charging rates in the country – this high cost is a huge contributing reason why developers are not building out consented applications across the borough.

“The high charging rate means Waverley has collected a huge pot of £26 million CIL funds, with a current balance of (£13.6million, but the CIL policy Waverley’s Executive has adopted means the committee only meets annually and the money is not being handed out as it should.”

Earlier this week, Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative MP for Godalming & Ash has also written a letter to the Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government on the subject seeking a meeting to explain, first hand, the impact enforcement of the legislation, in Waverley, has had on some residents in comparison with other local authority areas.