Councils will have more freedom on spending funds from the infrastructure levy under a Government amendment to the Levelling Up Bill.
In one of his last acts as planning minister last week, Marcus Jones introduced the clause that will allow funds from the levy to be spent on ‘non-infrastructure matters’ such as ‘improving local services’.
Mr Jones said: ‘We expect to capture more value from developments because we will be capturing the value of the uplift of the finished product.'
However, the amendment drew concern from opposition benches.
Labour’s shadow planning minister Matthew Pennycook said: ‘We feel very strongly, as I think local communities will, that the proceeds of an infrastructure levy should be spent on infrastructure in their area.’
Former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron also said he was ‘very concerned’ and the amendment ‘rings serious alarm bells with me’.
Mr Jones also introduced an amendment meaning completion notices, which force developers to ‘use or lose their planning permission,’ will no longer require confirmation from the secretary of state.
He added: ‘Local planning authorities should not be discouraged from using them where appropriate and where the existing process for serving notices is long, slow and unnecessarily complex.’
In addition, the Bill will now increase the time limit for enforcement action in England to 10 years in all cases.
An opposition amendment tabled by Mr Pennycook to require ‘sufficient additional resources to local planning authorities’ for enforcement actions was defeated.
Mr Jones said the new powers were ‘discretionary’ and therefore ‘will not create significant additional resourcing burdens for local planning authorities’.
This article originally appeared on The MJ (£).
