Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)

Northampton Borough Council (NBC) adopted the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) at the full council meeting held on 21 September 2015. This means that all liable developments granted planning permission, including those allowed by an appeal decision, and submitted on or after 1st April 2016 to NBC and from April 2021, West Northamptonshire Council, will need to pay the levy. The CIL will not apply to liable developments that were received and/or received permission before this date. The CIL will also apply to some developments that do not need planning permission if they are commenced on or after 1st April 2016. Charges will apply to developments of new houses and to new residential and retail developments of over 100sqm.

Important - CIL liability is held as a charge on land. If CIL is not paid you may have difficulty selling your land or property.

Once you have completed your CIL form please email as an attachment to planning.nbc@westnorthants.gov.uk. Please make sure you provide your planning application reference or site address to enable us to match the CIL form with the appropriate planning application.

CIL Rates

Planning application stage

To allow us to decide if your development is liable for CIL and if so how much, an information form is available from the National Planning Portal. This should be completed and submitted with your planning application. This includes applications for householder development. All CIL forms can be downloaded from the National Planning Portal at www.planningportal.co.uk

Planning decision stage

Where planning permission is necessary, or permission is granted for development by way of a general consent, the developer, landowner or another interested party is expected to assume liability for the levy by submitting an assumption of liability form. It may speed up the process of issuing a liability notice if this form is submitted with your planning application.

When planning permission is granted for a CIL liable development, we will issue a CIL liability notice alongside the planning decision notice or as soon as possible thereafter. This will confirm the amount of CIL payable.

Withdrawal of liability notice

At least one day before the approved development starts you must complete and submit a commencement notice form  stating when you intend to start work on the development. Once we have received this we will issue you with a Demand Notice, which will set out the payment required and the instalments for each payment (if applicable). The instalment policy can be viewed as part of the charging schedule . If you fail to make the payments or to complete the required forms before starting, you may be liable to enforcement action. This may result in a prosecution. For more information see the enforcement section below.

Important - CIL liability is held as a charge on land. If CIL is not paid you may have difficulty selling your land or property.

Permitted development

Since April 2013, permitted development (that which does not require planning permission) may be of a sufficient scale to be liable to CIL. It is then the responsibility of the developer to serve a notice of chargeable development form to us before development starts. The CIL charge will then be calculated and applied just as though planning permission had been issued. We may also advise if CIL is payable when dealing with 'do I need planning permission' requests and/or as part of the planning enforcement process.

Exemption and reliefs

In some cases, exemptions, relief or payment in instalments are allowable.

Mandatory relief

Mandatory relief is available for:

• development by registered charities for the delivery of their charitable purposes
• those parts of a development which are to be used as social housing
• self build exemption (for a whole house)
• self build exemption (for a residential annex or extension)

Discretionary relief

In very limited circumstances exceptional circumstances relief may be available from CIL but this may only happen if an S106 agreement has been entered into in respect of the planning permission which permits the chargeable development and the correct procedures in the regulations are followed.

If you think you might qualify for relief, you should speak to us as soon as possible. You should also seek agreement to your formal claim before starting work on site; relief cannot be granted after development has commenced.

To claim relief the form must be submitted and a decision received before development commences.

Further information and background documents

• You can find more information and forms on the planning portal website at www.planningportal.co.uk

For further information on the general approach to the Community Infrastructure Levy and the implementation programme, please contact us by email to planning.nbc@westnorthants.gov.uk