What is Community Infrastructure Levy also know as CIL?
1. When a developer builds something (housing, retail etc.) they have to pay a charge, known as CIL, to the Council.
2. The Council keeps 85% of this for citywide projects (like the Arena) and 15% goes to local areas (although communities which have adopted Neighbourhood Development Plans receive 25% of CIL monies generated in their defined area and ring-fenced for their benefit)
3. Decisions on how to allocate the 15% local CIL funding used to be made by the local Councillors advised by the Neighbourhood Partnership. They will now be made by Area Committees which are made up of the Councillors from a group of wards.
4. CIL money from all developments in Ashley, Easton, Lawrence Hill, Central, Troopers Hill, St George East and St George West will now be lumped into one pot and decided by one Area Committee.
5. CIL can only be spent on ‘infrastructure’ projects – usually capital works – that are connected to local developments and mitigate their impact on the community – this might be highways works like traffic calming, parks improvements or community buildings. CIL money cannot be spent on running costs or staffing for an ongoing service or activity.
6. There is no upper or lower budget limit-but the council are looking at a few large scale projects per area.
More about the process
You can review a full presentation by former Cllr Ruth Pickersgill from the meeting held in February 2021 HERE
Read more about CIL on the Bristol City Council website HERE.
Information video:
An information video with closed captions is also available on the webpage. This can be viewed here. The aim of this is to ensure the information can be viewed at a convenient time to anyone wishing to access it and offers the same content as would usually provide at the in-person sessions.
For more information
Contact: Abiir Shirdoon
abiir@upourstreet.org.uk / 07922 422 154
Update on CIL 20/21 process
Following elections in May, we postponed our community meeting about projects submitted for Community Infrastructure Levy funding in 20/21. Councillors have been spending time having briefings and getting more information and they have asked us to share this update with you.
- In 20/21, applications received for the funds was around 3 times the money available.
- Each ward can choose one or two projects to take to an Area Committee meeting. At this meeting the Councillors have to pitch for their projects to be funded.
- We are in Area Committee 4 which includes: Ashley, Central, Lawrence Hill, St George Central, St George Troopers Hill, St George West and Easton.
- This year there is a smaller pot of money available so it will be more difficult to get projects approved.
- Projects from 19/20 round are still waiting to be delivered, for example Newtown play area and Urban Park play area – but we are hopeful we will see some progress on these in 2021.
Easton received 7 applications:
- Greenbank Living Streets
- Reimagining M32
- Friends of Owen Square Park improvements
- Netham Park temporary wooden adventure play structures
- Bruce Road improvements
- Lower Whitehall Road crossing
- Chelsea Road improvements
Easton Councillors Barry Parsons and Jenny Bartle decided they would meet applicants individually to talk through the projects, discuss feedback from council parks and highways departments and then make a decision about which project they will propose at Area Committee.
Lawrence Hill received 6 applications – 2 of them were ineligible for CIL funding due to the type of project which leaves 4 projects:
- Old Market Neighbourhood Plan – St Judes Play Area
- Old Market Neighbourhood Plan – Broad Plain improvements
- St Nicholas Tolentino – school pedestrian crossing
- St Philips Marsh – nursery pedestrian crossing
Old Market Neighbourhood Plan projects are automatically approved for funding because of the Neighbourhood Plan status of the area.
The two remaining projects for pedestrian crossings will be taken forward by Lawrence Hill Councillors Yassin Mohamud and Hibaq Jama to Area Committee for discussion.
We will speak to Councillors later in the year about how they would like the 21/22 funding round to be organised.
