In the early summer, and for the third year running, planners and lawyers faced a consultation on changes to the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). While most of the amendments to the regulations and guidance put forward by DCLG were welcome, they still do not deal with structural imbalances in the mechanism. It still does not have a level playing field at examination. It is still to blunt in practice. It does not deal adequately with large sites. And sensible mechanisms for the actual delivery of infrastructure have yet to emerge.
We have been promised a wholesale review of CIL in 2015. Part of the present problem is that the original design of CIL was imperfect, largely in an attempt to make it easy to adopt and hard to abuse. Unfortunately, the imperfections have made it imbalanced. Over time, that imbalance will reduce confidence in the system and will give more power to those who have objected to CIL, as a matter of principle, from the outset.
