Car club and travel voucher contributions

A car club contribution in a planning obligation looks like a small item until the bay has to be delivered. The money is straightforward. The on-street space is not, because it sits in the public highway, needs a traffic regulation order, and cannot be delivered by the developer at all. Travel vouchers have the opposite problem: delivery is easy and the evidence that they change behaviour is thinner than the obligation implies.

Both measures have to satisfy the three tests in regulation 122 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010. They must be necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms, directly related to the development, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to it. A contribution offered to improve the feel of an application, rather than to address an identified effect, fails the first test.

What the measures are meant to achieve

The purpose is a reduction in car ownership and car trips, which in turn supports a parking provision below the local standard and a trip generation assumption lower than the default.

A car club works by removing the need to own a car for occasional use. The evidence for that effect is strongest in locations with reasonable public transport, high density and constrained parking, and it is weakest in low density suburban and rural locations where a club vehicle 400 metres away substitutes for nothing.

Travel vouchers work on the first months of occupation, when travel habits form. A season ticket or a cycle voucher given at the point someone moves in has more effect than the same sum offered in year three. That timing is the main argument for them and should be the argument made.

So match the measure to the location rather than offering both because both appear in the authority's obligations schedule.

Evidence that supports a contribution

The contribution should follow from something in the Transport Assessment rather than appearing for the first time in the heads of terms. Four pieces of evidence do that work.

The trip generation and car ownership assumptions used, with the reduction attributed to the sustainable transport measures stated separately from other adjustments. If the assessment reduced trips by a percentage without saying which measure delivers it, the obligation has nothing to rest on.

The accessibility of the site, measured rather than described, including walking distances to bus stops and stations and the service frequencies at those stops.

The parking provision proposed against the adopted standard, with the shortfall quantified. This is normally the planning effect the contribution addresses.

Local car club presence, including whether an operator already runs bays in the authority and how far the nearest is from the site.

Where the authority asks for a sum without an evidence base, ask what effect it addresses. That is not obstruction, it is the regulation 122 test.

On-street bays and the orders needed

A dedicated car club bay on the public highway requires a traffic regulation order under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The order has to be drafted, advertised, consulted on, and made, and objections have to be considered. The process takes months and the outcome is not guaranteed.

Three practical consequences follow.

The developer cannot promise the bay. The highway authority makes the order, so an obligation requiring the developer to provide an on-street bay is an obligation to do something outside the developer's control. The usual drafting answer is a sum paid to the authority to fund the order and the bay, or an obligation to use reasonable endeavours with a fallback.

An off-street bay within the development avoids the order entirely. It is less visible and less convenient for non-residents, which reduces the club's viability, but it is deliverable. On a scheme with a podium or an undercroft, this is often the better answer.

The order's timing has to fit the occupation trigger. An obligation requiring the bay to be in place before first occupation, where the order has not been started, creates an unsatisfiable condition on the developer's own programme.

Sums, duration and indexation

Four variables need fixing in the agreement, and vagueness in any of them causes argument later.

Membership contributions are usually expressed as free membership for a defined period for each dwelling, often a few years, with the cost paid to the operator. Set out who holds the obligation after the developer leaves the site, because a management company inheriting an unfunded membership commitment will not honour it.

The spend period and the clawback matter more than the sum. Money paid to an authority and never applied to anything is the single most common complaint about obligations of this kind, and the way travel plan contributions and monitoring fees are drafted determines whether that happens.

Delivery risk if no operator comes forward

Car club operators make commercial decisions. An operator may decline a location, withdraw from an authority, or cease trading, and none of those is within the developer's gift.

Draft for it. A workable clause provides that where no operator has agreed to serve the bay within a defined period after the trigger, the sum is applied instead to other sustainable transport measures within a stated distance of the site, with the measures agreed between the parties. A less workable clause simply requires a car club and leaves both sides stuck.

Where the development provides the bay and the infrastructure but no vehicle appears, the space should have a defined alternative use rather than sitting empty. Charging infrastructure is the obvious candidate, and the arrangements for electric vehicle charging in new residential development usually overlap with the car club bay specification anyway.

Monitoring and reporting

Monitoring is what turns a commitment into an outcome, and it belongs in the Travel Plan rather than in the obligation alone.

The pattern that works is a baseline survey shortly after a stated occupation level is reached, then repeat surveys at defined intervals, measuring mode share and car ownership against targets set in the plan. Where targets are missed, a remedial measures fund is drawn on to implement additional measures from an agreed list.

Keep the monitoring proportionate. A 30 unit scheme does not need three rounds of travel surveys, and an authority asking for them should be asked what it will do with the results.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

Drafting the obligation

Six drafting points prevent most later disputes.

1. Define the measure precisely, including bay dimensions and location if off-street, or the funding route if on-street.
2. Name the party responsible after the developer disposes of the land.
3. Tie the payment to a trigger that the developer controls.
4. State the index, base date and application date.
5. Include a spend period and a clawback of unspent money.
6. Include the fallback where no operator can be secured.

An illustrative example

A 140 unit scheme in an inner suburb provides parking at 0.4 spaces per dwelling against an adopted standard of 0.7. The transport assessment attributes part of the reduced trip generation to a car club and to initial public transport vouchers. The obligation provides one off-street club bay with charging infrastructure, a capital sum indexed from the agreement date, three years of membership for each dwelling, and a voucher of a stated value per dwelling issued on occupation. Where no operator is secured within 24 months of first occupation, the capital sum is redirected to cycle parking and footway improvements within 400 metres. This example is illustrative rather than a real agreement.

One honest uncertainty: the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 contains powers for an Infrastructure Levy that would change how some contributions are secured. As at October 2026 those powers have been legislated but not brought fully into force, so check the current position before assuming the obligations regime will continue unchanged.

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