Fears over school funds from homes
Claim planning advice did not look to future
Planning officers have been criticised over advice they gave councillors considering an application for 53 homes in Lenham.
Both KCC and Lenham Parish Council urged Maidstone Borough Council to impose a Section 106 order with the grant of planning permission to secure a £159,000 contribution from developers towards an expansion of Lenham Primary School. A Section 106 contribution can only be used for the purpose stated. But instead the council asked the developer to pay a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) which will go into the borough’s general funds - and might not end up going to the school. Under current regulations, money from only five developments can be pooled towards a single project and this was the reason the council’s head of planning, Rob Jarman, gave for not using the 106 route.
Mr Jarman said: “Lenham is due to take 1,000 homes across a mosaic of sites, of which this scheme is likely to be the smallest. It defies logic that you would count one of the smallest sites in those five.”
But building surveyor Robert Sinclair said Mr Jarman had not given councillors the full picture. New legislation is due to come into effect from September to remove the five-projects rule. Mr Sinclair of Forge Lane, Leeds, said: “The chief planning officer omitted to advise members that the pooling limitation is to be dropped. By linking the developer’s contribution to CIL, there now may not be sufficient funds for the school expansion.” The council said: “Decisions have to be taken in the present rather than a potential future.”