We note that developers will be required to deliver infrastructure directly or contribute through Section 106, CIL or its successor. We welcome the reference to development creating additional demand for infrastructure and services, so it is reasonable for developers to address these needs to make development sustainable. We have published guidance for local authorities on securing developer contributions for education, and you will also be aware of Planning Practice Guidance specifically relating to education in the chapters on viability, planning obligations and safe and healthy communities.

With regard to the emerging Infrastructure Delivery Plan and Viability Assessment, we can offer the following general advice regarding education.

The next version of the Local Plan should seek to identify specific sites (existing or new) which can deliver the school places needed to support growth, based on the latest evidence of identified need and demand in the Infrastructure Delivery Plan. The site allocations should also seek to clarify requirements for the delivery of new schools, including when they should be delivered to support housing growth, the minimum site area required, any preferred site characteristics, and any requirements for safeguarding additional land for future expansion of schools where need and demand indicates this might be necessary. Establishing these requirements within the plan is particularly important for securing sites at an appropriate value when additional land or standalone sites for schools need to be purchased, as DfE ‘Basic Need’ funding allocations do not factor in the costs of site acquisition.

Viability assessment should inform options analysis and site selection, with site typologies reflecting the type and size of developments that are envisaged in the borough/district. This enables an informed judgement about which developments would be able to deliver the range of infrastructure required, including schools, leading to policy requirements that are fair, realistic and evidence-based. In accordance with Planning Practice Guidance, there should be an initial assumption that applicable developments will provide both land and funding for the construction of new schools. The total cumulative cost of complying with all relevant policies should not undermine deliverability of the plan, so it is important that anticipated education needs and costs of provision are incorporated at the outset, to inform local decisions about site selection and infrastructure priorities.

While it is important to provide this clarity and certainty to developers and the communities affected by development, retaining a degree of flexibility about site specific requirements for schools is also necessary given that the need for school places can vary over time due to the many variables affecting it. The department therefore recommends the Council consider highlighting in the next version of the Local Plan that:
- specific requirements for developer contributions to increasing capacity of existing schools and the provision of new schools for any particular site will be confirmed at application stage to ensure the latest data on identified need informs delivery; and that
- requirements to deliver schools on some sites could change in future if it were demonstrated and agreed that the site had become surplus to requirements, and is therefore no longer required for school use.

One of the tests of soundness is that a Local Plan is ‘effective’, meaning the plan should be deliverable over its period. In this context and with specific regard to planning for schools, there is a need to ensure that education contributions made by developers are sufficient to deliver the school places required to meet the increase in demand generated by new developments.

The councils should set out education infrastructure requirements additional for the plan period within an Infrastructure Funding Statement . Where additional need for school places will be generated by housing growth, the statement should identify the anticipated CIL and/or Section 106 funding towards this infrastructure. The statement should be reviewed annually to report on the amount of funding received via developer contributions and how it has been used, providing transparency to all stakeholders.

Local authorities have sometimes experienced challenges in funding schools via Section 106 planning obligations due to limitations on the pooling of developer contributions for the same item or type of infrastructure. However, the revised CIL Regulations remove this constraint, allowing unlimited pooling of developer contributions from planning obligations and the use of both Section 106 funding and CIL for the same item of infrastructure. The advantage of using Section 106 relative to CIL for funding schools is that it is clear and transparent to all stakeholders what value of contribution is being allocated by which development to which schools, thereby increasing certainty that developer contributions will be used to fund the new school places that are needed. The department supports the use of planning obligations to secure developer contributions for education wherever there is a need to mitigate the direct impacts of development, consistent with Regulation 122 of the CIL Regulations.
38. We also request a reference within the Local Plan’s policies or supporting text to explain that developer contributions may be secured retrospectively, when it has been necessary to forward fund infrastructure projects in advance of anticipated housing growth. An example of this would be the local authority’s expansion of a secondary school to ensure that places are available in time to support development coming forward. This helps to demonstrate that the plan is positively prepared and deliverable over its period.

The department would be particularly interested in responding to any update to the Infrastructure Delivery Plan/Infrastructure Funding Statement, viability assessment or other evidence relevant to education which may be used to inform local planning policies and CIL charging schedules. As such, please add the department to the database for future consultations on relevant plans and proposals.