Social infrastructure contributions and how they are justified

A social infrastructure contribution request is built from three things: a yield, a capacity position and a cost. Take any education or health contribution asked of a residential scheme and you will find a formula applying a pupil or patient yield to the unit mix, a statement that local capacity is exhausted, and a published cost per place. Each of those three can be tested, and each has to survive regulation 122 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 independently.

Developers lose these arguments by disputing the arithmetic. The arithmetic is usually right. The weakness is almost always in the capacity evidence.

How a contribution request is built

The sequence an authority follows, whether or not it says so:

1. Apply a yield factor to the proposed units, usually by bedroom count and sometimes by tenure.
2. Compare the resulting demand against the capacity of the relevant service in a defined planning area.
3. Where capacity is insufficient, identify a project that would provide it.
4. Apply a published cost per place or per unit of provision.
5. Index the figure, usually to a construction cost index, and set payment triggers.

Regulation 122 then requires the obligation 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 to it. All three limbs, in every case.

Step two is the one that is routinely asserted rather than evidenced, and it is where the necessity test bites hardest. A contribution for additional school places is not necessary where the places already exist.

Pupil yield and occupancy assumptions

Authorities publish pupil yield factors, commonly expressed as pupils generated per dwelling, differentiated by number of bedrooms and sometimes by tenure. The figures are derived from local census and school census data and they differ between authorities, so the first check is simply whether the authority has applied its own published factor correctly.

Four checks worth making:

• Whether one and two bedroom flats are included at all. Many published factors exclude or heavily discount small flats, and a formula applied uniformly across a scheme of studios and one bedroom units overstates demand considerably.
• Whether the specialist or restricted accommodation in the scheme is excluded. Age restricted housing, student accommodation and some forms of supported housing generate different demand, and the formula should recognise it.
• Whether the yield has been applied to net additional units or to gross. A conversion replacing existing family housing with flats may generate less demand than the existing use.
• The date of the factor. Yield factors derived from data a decade old may not reflect current household composition.

Occupancy assumptions matter for the same reason they matter in other calculations. A scheme of 60 one bedroom flats does not generate secondary school demand in the way 60 four bedroom houses do, and a formula that treats them alike will not satisfy the scale and kind limb of regulation 122.

Capacity evidence from the service provider

This is the request to make, in writing, early:

For education, the forecast roll against net capacity for each school in the planning area, by year group, for the period the development will be occupied, together with the authority's own place planning methodology and any committed expansion projects.

For health, the patient list size and registered capacity of the relevant practices, the provider's own assessment of whether the development can be absorbed, and the project the contribution would fund.

For sport, open space and play, the relevant strategy and its assessment of quantity, quality and accessibility in the relevant analysis area.

Three patterns recur in the responses.

The data shows spare capacity that the request ignores, which is a direct answer on necessity.

The data shows a deficit that predates the development and is not caused by it, which goes to whether the obligation remedies an existing deficiency rather than mitigating this scheme.

The provider has no identified project, no cost estimate and no programme, which weakens necessity because the authority cannot say what the money will do.

Health contributions are the most frequently challenged, because the methodologies vary widely and because capital funding routes for primary care sit outside the planning system. Ask for the project.

Testing the request against the statutory tests

Work limb by limb and write the response as such.

Add two further checks that sit alongside the statutory tests. Whether the authority charges the levy and has allocated levy income to the same project, which raises double charging. And whether the cost per place used is the authority's own published figure or a locally inflated one.

The published infrastructure funding statement answers the first of those. Since the five obligation pooling cap was revoked in September 2019, the statutory tests and that statement are what stand between a scheme and a duplicated charge.

Challenging a formula applied mechanically

A formula is legitimate as a tool for consistency. It becomes unlawful when it is applied without regard to whether the obligation meets the tests on the facts of the particular application.

Four arguments that work when the evidence supports them:

The unit mix argument. Apply the authority's own factors to the actual mix rather than to an average dwelling, and show the difference.

The capacity argument. Produce the forecast roll data and show the places exist.

The catchment argument. Show that the project the contribution funds serves a different area from the one the occupiers will use.

The double counting argument. Show the levy allocation to the same project in the funding statement.

What does not work is arguing that the contribution is unaffordable without a viability case, or that other developers were not asked. Affordability is a viability argument, run separately on its own evidence, and the Viability Assessment carries it. An inspector will treat the two as distinct, as we set out in when an inspector reopens viability at appeal.

Timing and spend commitments

The drafting points that protect a developer after permission:

• Payment triggers tied to occupation stages rather than to the grant of permission, so money follows delivery
• The project defined by name and reference, with a plan where relevant
• A time limit for spend, commonly five or ten years, with repayment of unspent sums plus interest
• Indexation from a stated base date using a named index, rather than an unspecified uplift
• A cap on monitoring fees, with an explanation of how they were calculated
• A release provision where the project becomes unnecessary or is delivered by other means

The repayment provision is the one authorities resist and the one most worth insisting on. Where an obligation no longer serves a useful purpose, there is a route to modify or discharge it, and we cover that in discharging a section 106 obligation that no longer serves.

Where highway and education works overlap in a single scheme, check which mechanism should carry which, since a highway agreement is usually the right vehicle for works to the public highway. That split is explained in section 278, section 38 and section 106.

Evidence to prepare in advance

Before the first pre-application meeting, assemble:

The unit mix by bedroom count and tenure, in a table, with net additional units identified separately from gross.

The authority's own published yield factors and cost multipliers, downloaded and dated.

The current infrastructure funding statement.

The forecast roll and capacity data if it is published, or a written request for it if it is not.

A draft heads of terms setting out what you accept, what you dispute and why, with the figures worked through.

Arriving with that package changes the conversation. Officers negotiating against a developer who has read the place planning methodology tend to concede the weak requests quickly, and the argument narrows to the two or three contributions that are properly evidenced. That is a better outcome than a blanket objection, and it is faster.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which supporting documents a residential scheme of this scale is likely to need.

This is general guidance rather than legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.