Section 106 planning obligations
Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as amended) ("the 1990 Act") allows landowners to enter into "planning obligations" either:
- unilaterally; or
- by agreement with us.
Most planning obligations are by agreement and are referred to as Section 106 Agreements. Planning obligations must relate to a specific area of land that is identified on a plan or map attaching to the obligation.
Fees for the monitoring of planning obligations
Section 106 agreements are normally dealt with by our Planning Solicitor or by external solicitors appointed by us, and the owner/developer will be liable to pay our/external solicitors' legal fees for drafting and completing the agreement.
In accordance with Regulation 122 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 (as amended) we charge a fee for the monitoring, reporting and delivery of planning obligations.
The monitoring fees are used to support the monitoring of agreements including:
- The maintenance and development of its planning obligations monitoring system
- Monitoring of trigger points and development progress
- Ensuring financial contributions are used for the specific purposes for which they are required, through control of accounting procedures
- Recovery of obligation payments not made, including any necessary formal or legal action
- Reporting, including statutory reporting on funds
- Any other monitoring requirements.
The responsibility of informing us of development progress, achievement of trigger points and delivery of the relevant obligations in accordance with the legal agreement sits with the developer.
Charging schedule (from April 2023 onwards)
- For basic agreements each obligation is charged at £300 plus £100 per additional trigger point.
The above monitoring fee is based on an hourly rate of £100 and an assumption of three hours of officer time per obligation.
- Where obligations are payable to external organisations (excluding Hertfordshire County Council) a monitoring fee of £100 per obligation will be charged
- Where agreements are complex and/or large scale (as determined by us), or require specialist monitoring, a bespoke charging schedule may be applied
- Unilateral Undertakings (UU) for mitigation of impacts on the Chiltern Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation only, and which use our approved UU template, have a monitoring fee of £400.
In addition to the above, any green space that is delivered on site with the expectation of being adopted by us may attract a further monitoring fee.
The fee is payable upon signing the legal agreement.
Section 52 Agreements (Town and Country Planning Act 1971)
Some agreements date from before the 1990 Act when they were known as Section 52 Agreements. The provisions of Section 52 were similar but not identical to Section 106 and any agreements entered into under Section 52 continue to be enforceable today.