Letter: Cllr Potter Should Concentrate on the Underlying Problem with S106 Payments

Published on: 6 Sep, 2025
Updated on: 7 Sep, 2025

From Sue Wyeth-Price

R4GV borough councillor for Ash South

In response to: GBC Does Not Have £55m Unspent in Section 106 Money

Cllr Potter is almost correct with his opening statement, but he clearly misunderstands the meaning of “pending” in this context.

It’s true that no homes have yet been built at Wisley, but in all of the 69 s.106 deeds I have analysed in Ash and Tongham, most include pre-commencement payments. These are sums that should be paid before any work begins. In the case of Wisley, £5.9 million is pre-commencement, with the rest due over the build-out period.

The £41 million I referred to as “pending” also includes large sums from estates that are already fully built out — for example, £2.6 million from a single estate in Ash Wharf.

The real question is: why has that money still not been collected? Some of these pending amounts date back as far as 2004. Was no one monitoring or chasing them? Or were the s.106 agreements simply drafted to placate residents into believing they would see community benefits, when in practice those benefits were never delivered?

Both seem to be the case in Ash, where allotment and healthcare land contributions remain uncollected and are not even acknowledged in GBC’s report.

I absolutely agree that funds passed on to other organisations — particularly Surrey County Council — are a major issue. Again, large sums disappear from GBC’s reporting once transferred, even though they remain unspent.

In Ash, I can point to contributions handed over to SCC as far back as 2012 that still haven’t been used. Worse, some of this money should never have been released without receipts for completed works. Residents deserve reassurance that this practice will not continue.

This is not just an “Ash problem” any longer. When I raised these concerns in detail back in May 2022, I warned other wards that unless the system changed, they too would face the same difficulties we were already experiencing in Ash and Tongham — long delays, money going uncollected, and contributions being handed over without accountability.

At the time, I was dismissed by Cllr Potter as “alarmist,” “misplaced,” and “severely mistaken.” Yet here we are, just three years later, and the same patterns are emerging across other wards — exactly as I warned.

At that time, the total contributions across the borough stood at around £20 million. Today, the figure has almost tripled to over £55 million. That growth alone shows my concerns were neither misplaced nor mistaken.

And while Cllr Potter is keen to accuse me of being misleading, it is worth noting that he is not only a GBC councillor but also a Surrey County Councillor. Given SCC holds a large share of these unspent contributions — some going back over a decade — he has had both the position and the opportunity to press for action. Yet we have seen little progress.

Rather than continue to disparage those raising the alarm, I would urge Cllr Potter to focus on the underlying issue: millions of pounds in developer contributions — some dating back two decades — that still haven’t delivered the promised benefits to our communities.

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