Cheltenham Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy: Expressions of Interest 2023
Background
The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is a charge, which local authorities can place on developers to help fund infrastructure needed to support new development in their areas. One of the statutory responsibilities of the borough council is to collect and allocate CIL on behalf of non-parished areas. In areas with a parish council, the funds are passed directly to the parish council to allocate.
Individuals, communities and ward councillors across non-parished areas (areas without a parish council) are eligible to apply now for a share of the £124,000 funding to improve their local area that has been affected by development.
The funds have been collected from new developments as part of the normal planning process. The collective money is intended to support community projects that have a social, environmental or economic objective in areas where development has taken place.
Developing your expression of interest
To ensure the neighbourhood element of CIL collected in the non-parished area of Cheltenham is allocated to meet the needs of those local communities, the council has developed a CIL Neighbourhood Panel. This Neighbourhood Panel will encourage local communities and organisations to develop expressions of interest for consideration.
The CIL expression of interest form recognises that some projects are more complex than others and that different projects will be seeking varying values of allocation. They therefore will be applying a pragmatic approach to the receipt of information.
For expressions of interest under £5,000, they acknowledge a lighter touch in the preparation and the level of detail submitted, but for expressions of interest over £5,000 they expect the due diligence and engagement to have been carried out so that they can appropriately evaluate projects in terms of support from local communities and businesses, value for money and effectiveness in delivery.
When drafting your expression of interest, it is important that you consult members of your local community who may have an interest in the project. This engagement should be appropriate for the scale of the project proposed and examples of relevant groups include:
local ward councillors
any neighbourhood forum
community organisations
residents’ groups
amenity societies
individual businesses
in the town centre Cheltenham Business Improvement District (BID)
It should be noted that to progress to the shortlisting stage, expressions of interest must be supported by at least one ward member from the area within which the project is proposed.
To support you in completing this expression of interest, please refer to the frequently asked questions (FAQs) at the bottom of this page.
How to make an expression of interest
Please use the online form to make your expression of interest to the Cheltenham Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy.
If you need assistance with writing an expression of interest, please contact your local councillor. For any other queries, please refer to the FAQs, or contact communityservices@cheltenham.gov.uk.
Bids for funds must be submitted by Sunday 30th April 2023. After this date, applications will be assessed by the Cheltenham CIL Neighbourhood Panel and recommendations will be put forward to the council's Cabinet for approval.
For more information and to apply, please visit this website: https://haveyoursay.cheltenham.gov.uk/planning/cil/
Image credit: Unsplash