Development ‘not viable with £1.2m S106 cash and affordable homes’
GLEESON HOMES ASKS TO NOT HAVE TO PAY COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE CONTRIBUTION
details that discussions between North Lincolnshire Council and Gleeson Homes have taken place over the expected S106 contribution. These are required for larger developments for developers to essentially pay for potential pressures on local infrastructure with more residents.
The council told Gleeson it would expect £1.2m in S106 contributions, with a million for education alone.
Based on an all-in build cost of £11.4m, and a blended profit average of just under 19 per cent per home sold, Cushman & Wakefield find there would be a negative land value of £155,000, if the affordable homes and S106 were enforced.
It has become an ever-common theme for housing developers in North Lincolnshire to apply to avoid most or all expected affordable homes and S106 contributions.
A split planning committee decision in November allowed it to occur with 200 approved homes between Bottesford and Yaddlethorpe. Here, 40 affordable homes and approximately £1.5m S106 contributions were scrapped. But the demand for exceptions to the affordable homes and S106 expectations began before the decision on this.
A development of 350 homes at the former Kirton in Lindsey airfield site was also permitted in January to not provide any affordable homes or 106 contribution.
Like the Bottesford project, it is subject to an annual clawback mechanism to reassess viability.
Gleeson have requested to waive affordable homes and a similar £1.2m requirement for a proposed 158 homes development on land north of Burringham Road, west of Scunthorpe.
In the autumn of last year, it applied to build 81 homes off Scotter Road South, Scunthorpe, and contended it could not be viable with any affordable homes. There was no request to likewise waive the expected £0.75m S106 contribution.
This Brigg application is also not the only proposed scheme at the market town that seeks to be exempt from affordable homes or S106 contributions. Bellway Homes (Yorkshire) has sought it for hundreds of homes on land off Wrawby Road, the A18. This application, made late last summer, also remains pending.