Car club spaces secured by planning obligation

A car club space is a parking bay reserved for a shared vehicle that residents book by the hour, secured through a section 106 obligation because the council wants the scheme's parking ratio reduced without leaving people stranded. The obligation usually covers three things: the bay itself, the operator arrangement, and a period of free or discounted membership for the new households. It is easy to draft badly, and the commonest failure is tying the whole thing to one named operator.

Operators enter and leave markets. An obligation that names one and provides no fallback becomes undischargeable the moment that company withdraws from the town.

What the space is meant to achieve

The planning purpose is trip suppression and reduced car ownership. A scheme in a sustainable location with a reduced parking ratio needs to show the highway authority why residents will not simply park on surrounding streets, and a shared vehicle within walking distance is one of the few measures with a plausible mechanism behind it.

That logic has to appear in the Transport Assessment rather than being asserted in the heads of terms. The assessment should set out the parking provision proposed, the demand it expects, the accessibility of the site, and the role the car club plays in bridging the gap. Where parking stress on surrounding streets is the objection, a survey supports the case, and the thresholds that decide whether an assessment is required at all are covered in the note on trip thresholds.

A car club bay is not a substitute for accessible parking. Blue Badge provision is a separate requirement with its own standards, and the piece on accessible and motorcycle parking covers what has to be provided alongside.

Operator agreements and who signs them

Three parties matter: the developer, the council and the operator. The operator is rarely a party to the section 106 agreement, which is the correct arrangement, because the council cannot sensibly bind a third party it has no relationship with.

The usual structure is an obligation on the developer to procure that a car club service is provided, by an operator meeting defined criteria, for a stated period. Criteria worth defining include accreditation under a recognised shared transport scheme, a minimum vehicle availability standard, a booking system accessible without a smartphone, and a commitment to publish usage data to the council.

Avoid naming a company. Define the service and the standard instead, so the obligation survives a change of operator. Where the council insists on an operator being identified, ask for a mechanism allowing substitution with an operator meeting the same criteria, approved in writing by the council, with approval not to be unreasonably withheld.

On-street compared with on-site bays

The choice determines the legal route and the programme.

On-street bays are generally preferred by highway authorities because the vehicle is visible, accessible to existing residents as well as new ones, and enforceable. They are also slower and outside the developer's control, which is why the obligation should tie the trigger to the developer having applied and paid rather than to the order having been made.

Membership contributions and how long they run

Most obligations require the developer to fund a period of membership for each dwelling, commonly two or three years from first occupation, sometimes with a credit towards driving time as well. The rationale is habit formation: households decide whether to own a car in the first months after moving, and a membership that arrives with the keys changes that decision more often than one offered later.

Draft the mechanism carefully. Say who the membership belongs to, the first occupier or the dwelling, and what happens when the property changes hands within the period. Say whether unused credits roll over. And put the payment through a named account with a schedule rather than leaving it as an obligation to fund on request.

Regulation 122 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 applies to all of this. The obligation has to be necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms, directly related to the development, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind. A contribution towards a car club three miles away, serving no one in the scheme, fails the second test.

Bays, signs and the traffic regulation order

An on-street bay needs an order made by the highway authority under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, reserving the space for the designated use. The process involves drafting the order, advertising it, allowing a period for objections, considering any received, and then sealing it. Objections from residents losing a parking space are normal and can add months.

Physical works follow: bay markings, upright signs stating the restriction and the permitted user, and sometimes a bollard or wheel stop. Where the vehicle is electric, the bay needs a charge point, a power supply from the distribution network operator, and a connection agreement, all of which have their own lead times.

Build the sequence into the programme. The realistic order is: obligation signed, application for the order made and funded, order advertised, order sealed, bay marked, charge point energised, operator vehicle delivered. Starting that chain at practical completion means a bay that appears a year after the first residents arrive.

What happens if the operator withdraws

This is the risk that drafting usually ignores. Cars are pulled from bays that get little use, operators consolidate, and services close in smaller towns.

Three mechanisms help. A substitution clause allowing another qualifying operator to step in without a deed of variation. A fallback obligation converting the unfulfilled provision into a payment to the council towards sustainable transport, calculated by a stated formula, so the money is not lost. And a sunset provision ending the obligation after the defined period rather than leaving a perpetual duty on a management company that cannot discharge it.

Councils sometimes resist the fallback payment on the basis that it weakens the commitment. The honest answer is that an obligation nobody can perform protects nobody, and a payment that funds cycle parking or a bus stop upgrade delivers something. That argument tends to land better when it is made at heads of terms stage than during a discharge application four years later.

Drafting so it stays deliverable

1. Define the service and the operator criteria, and avoid naming a company.
2. Tie triggers to actions within the developer's control, such as submitting and funding an application for a traffic regulation order.
3. Set the membership period, the beneficiary and the treatment of a change of ownership.
4. Include a substitution mechanism with council approval not to be unreasonably withheld.
5. Include a fallback payment with a formula, and a sunset date.
6. Name who maintains the bay, the signs and any charge point, and for how long.
7. Require usage reporting, which gives both sides evidence when the obligation is reviewed.

Point seven is worth more than it looks. Usage data from an earlier phase is the strongest argument available when negotiating the next one, in either direction.

The car club commitment normally sits inside the wider Travel Plan, with monitoring targets and a review cycle attached, and the two documents should say the same thing. Inconsistency between the travel plan and the heads of terms is something council transport officers look for.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which transport documents a major residential scheme is likely to need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Section 106 obligations should be drafted by a solicitor, and you should check the position with your local planning authority and highway authority before relying on any of this. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.