Senior official says she hopes government plan will tackle imbalance between public and private sectors

A senior civil servant has told MPs she hopes policies aimed at boosting planning departments will level the playing field in terms of levels of resources available to councils and developers when undertaking viability negotiations.

Joanna Key, director general, regeneration, housing and planning, outlined to the Public Accounts Committee several measures the government is undertaking to try and boost planning departments.

These include making 拢12m in direct funding available for the recruitment and retention of planners, supporting a graduate scheme to place people in local authorities and allowing councils to set their own planning fees to recover costs.

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The PAC is looking into developer contributions 

When asked whether this will 鈥榓ddress the imbalance鈥� between public and private sectors, she said 鈥淚 really hope so.鈥�

Key added: 鈥淭he intention is precisely to address that issue, so that local authority planning departments are properly funded.

鈥淭hat way, they can deliver as much analysis, research and data to back up their assessments as a developer who might employ a private sector consultant to do his side of the negotiation.鈥�

Councils can require the delivery of infrastructure and a percentage of homes to be for affordable tenures as part of a section 106 planning agreement when approving schemes.

But developers can lower this percentage if they can demonstrate through financial assessments the site would not be viable otherwise.

Key also said that developers would only be able to depart from the government鈥檚 鈥榞olden rules鈥� governing green belt release 鈥� requiring them to deliver affordable housing in accordance with the council鈥檚 local plan and infrastructure 鈥� in 鈥渆xceptional cases鈥�.

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She said: 鈥淭here probably would need to be some flexibility. For example, if a site were very heavily contaminated and there were very high costs of remediation, you might want some flexibility in terms of the viability. I think that is what we are saying.鈥�

The session was part of the Public Account Committee鈥檚 inquiry into developer contributions, including section 106 and the community infrastructure levy.