I recently visited Cambridge City Council offices with Richard Taylor to inspect their accounts for 2008.
One of the interesting things we obtained was a list of all the unapplied s106 money the council had at its disposal. The total as at 31st March 2009 was £8,723,895.62p comprised of over 650 individual agreements. The actual contents of the individual contracts are secret, so we didn’t know how much the council extracted from Tesco at Newmarket road, only that over £465K remained unspent. For comparison,Cambridge City Council General Fund net spending was set at £18,772,400 for 2009/10.
Meanwhile I’ve been looking at plots of land here in Cambridge and happened upon a piece with permission for 6 tiny flats. With the agents particulars came the s106 agreement. Here is the breakdown:-
| Formal open space contribution | £3,240 |
| Informal open space contribution | £2,754 |
| Community facilities | £6,510 |
| Southern corridor area transport plan | £18,819 |
| Lifelong learning facilities | £960 |
| £32,283 | |
| 6 flats per flat | £5,380.50 |
So before you plant your spade in the ground the council is demanding over £5k per flat. With most of it going on transport 🙁
