Residents are growing concerned after a Derbyshire council is considering accepting significantly reduced financial contributions worth hundreds of thousands of pounds from a developer towards infrastructure for the latest phase of a large housing scheme.
Bolsover District Council has already granted conditional planning permission for Persimmon Homes and Strata Homes’s housing scheme for up to 950 properties on land between Welbeck Road and Oxcroft Lane, in Bolsover.
But as part of the scheme’s latest phase to build 547 homes the council’s planning committee is considering an application from the developers to reduce their Section 106 financial contributions towards the area’s infrastructure along with a reduction towards extra care land, affordable housing and public open space and town park plans to ensure viability.
Resident Edward West stated: “The committee should instruct officers to negotiate a significantly more appropriate and fair S106 agreement that ensures the developer fully mitigates the impact of this development on the entire Bolsover community.”
Developers are ordinarily expected to make Section 106 financial contributions towards infrastructure such as education, care and medical facilities, parks, roads and affordable housing to mitigate against the impact of an increased population but requests to reduce contributions can be considered if the added costs make schemes unviable.
The council received the developers’ latest application earlier in the year for reserved matters for the residential development of 547 homes, public open space including a town park, landscaping, a spine road, and associated infrastructure.
But in October, the council also received a further S106A application to modify obligations contained in a legal agreement relating to a proposal for a reduction to financial contributions along with reductions to the ‘Extra Care Land / Affordable Housing Land’ and ‘Public Open Space/Town Park areas’.
Residents have also been sent correspondence in October inviting them to submit comments or views on this latest matter within 21 days from October 21 for the council to consider before it makes a decision.
The council, and other local authorities, have previously been willing to reduce or abandon S106 arrangements to ensure housing schemes remain viable for developers so that they can be completed particularly at the moment when there is a national housing shortage.
Bolsover District Council’s independent viability expert CP Viability Ltd has agreed with the applicant that the scheme cannot viably support any onsite affordable housing but the expert’s’ ‘modelling’ does show that the scheme is able to viably support S106 contributions of £7,408,709.
CP Viability Ltd stated that if the council wishes to favour onsite affordable housing over the S106 contributions, it calculated that the scheme would be able to viably support 55 onsite affordable units – achieving a 10 per cent requirement – if the S106 contributions were reduced to around £3.9million.
Campaigner Dom Webb, who has objected to the application to reduce financial infrastructure contributions, echoed that the council’s independent viability concluded the scheme is viable with either full S106 contributions of £7,408,709 or alternatively 10per cent on-site affordable housing with reduced S106 contributions to approximately £3.9 million.
Mr Webb claims the council’s own expert has provided evidence that the scheme is viable with the originally outlined financial contributions and that if any reductions are agreed it would compromise the integrity of the planning process.
He said: “The council’s own expert response alone provides robust evidence that the scheme is viable with full original S106 obligations, rendering the modifications unjustified.”
Mr Webb added: “Refusal is necessary to uphold the Local Plan, National Planning Policy Framework, and National Planning Practice Guidance, ensuring sustainable development and policy compliance.”
He said that consultees’ responses including from Derbyshire County Council’s strategic planning team and highways authority as well as the district council’s urban design team and its leisure services have all assumed delivery of the existing full infrastructure obligations.
Mr Webb argued that the Phase 2 Travel Plan of the overall scheme commits to pedestrian and cycle infrastructure improvements with Elmton Lane upgrades and bus services commencing prior to first occupation directly relying on the original S106’s infrastructure requirements but this latest application seeks to scale back these elements with a reduction in the Town Park area and in the ‘Extra Care Land’.
He added that the latest application also contravenes Local Plan policy which requires a minimum of 10per cent of affordable housing on sites of 25 or more dwellings in the Bolsover area subject to viability.
One concerned resident said that the council should consider stopping the development if the applicants cannot do what they had originally stated because the infrastructure needs to be in place and parents are already struggling to get school places.
Ferne Hibbins, of Bolsover, who feels any reductions in financial contributions would be unjustified, said: “I have serious concerns about the fairness and impact of this proposal on our community.
“The developer’s own figures show combined earnings of £163.4m and a profit of £28.6m. It is therefore extremely difficult to understand how they can claim to only afford £1m combined in local investment.
“The average house price in this development is around £300,000 – this is a major, profitable scheme, and the request to cut community investment by hundreds of thousands of pounds feels wholly unreasonable.
“If a development can generate tens of millions in profit, the company should honour the commitments that were key to the scheme’s approval.
“Reducing contributions now undermines public trust and sends the message that promises made to local residents are optional.”
Ms Hibbins added: ” This development has already had a huge impact on the town. It’s only fair that the community receives the benefits that were promised – proper open space, affordable housing, and financial contributions to local infrastructure like schools, healthcare, and highways.
“If the council accepts these reductions, future developers may feel they can promise community benefits to gain approval and then withdraw them later. That would seriously damage public confidence in the planning process.”
Residents previously raised concerns that the original application for 547 homes as part of the wider housing scheme for 950 homes would create a strain on insufficient services, lead to over urbanisation with an impact on wildlife and that highways will struggle to cope with the expected increase in traffic.
Bolsover District Council was asked for a comment but at the time of publication the authority had not yet responded.
