Advice to Canterbury City Council

Enquiry

• From: Canterbury City Council
• Date advice given: 14 June 2011
• Enquiry type: Phone

Nick Churchill from Canterbury City Council explained that they are currently working on the Local Impact Report and enquired as to whether they are able to approach Vattenfall for Community Contributions outside the scope of the DCO.

Advice given

IPC advised that it is for Cantebury City Council (CCC) to decide whether or not to seek community benefit contributions from Vattenfall where it would fall outside the scope of a s174 (equivalent to s106 agreement under the Town and Country Planning Act), ie if an agreement would not meet the tests set out in DCLG guidance, which limit the nature of planning obligations which a local authority may seek from a developer. CCC should seek their own legal advice on the legality and propriety of entering into such an agreement. Any community benefits agreement that does not constitute a s174 agreement would be purely a contract between CCC and Vattenfall and would not be relevant to Vattenfall's DCO application for the Kentish Flats extension. As such it would not be considered by the Examining Authority and would not be taken into account in making a recommendation to the secretary of state. However, if any likely impact of the proposed development needed addressing to ensure that the proposed development would not - in planning terms - have any unacceptable impact, this would need to be done either through requirements in the draft DCO (equivalent to conditions under the Town and Country Planning Act) or through a s.174 obligation. If a s.174 agreement is necessary, as a minimum the heads of terms of such an agreement would need to be agreed with Vattenfall prior to the submission of the application.