REGARDING the Chesterton Strategic Development it is odd that it appears to have been exempted from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) resulting in a significant cost saving for the developer and loss of income to Cirencester.

What is CIL?

  1. A mechanism for developer contributions
  2. It will contribute towards infrastructure needed to support the development of the area
  3. It is a charge per square metre of floor space
  4. It is not mandatory

What is CIL for?

  1. To help pay for infrastructure needed to support new development, but
  2. Not to remedy existing deficiencies unless the new scheme will make it worse
  3. Councils must spend the income on infrastructure – but it can decide on what (and this can change over time)

On the CDC website we have this page which holds a link to the following document and page 12 clearly shows the exemption.

It clearly shows that the Chesterton Strategic Development is, for some reason, exempt (£0 per m2 of development) when a levy of £80 per m2 could have been applied…one can only speculate why....

My main question regarding this would be why this development has been exempted in this way?

Has the Council just not got the spine to apply it?

And also a question for the developer:

Surely if he is considering this project as a “legacy” for Cirencester then is there not a moral obligation to step up to the task and volunteer to pay this levy?

In doing so he could then be leaving an actual legacy (i.e. a useful one) for Cirencester rather than the inevitable legacy of traffic gridlock - unless maybe one of the stipulations would be that the ring road were completed to allow adequate traffic flow around the town?

Maybe an even fatter bank account counts for more than moral obligation in the rarified upper echelons? 

Regards, an anonymous Cirencester resident