Section 106 Deferral - Development at Papworth Everard

To consider the request by the developer of the Summersfield Development in Papworth Everard to defer their Section 106 Papworth Bypass Contribution.
 

Cabinet is invited to consider the Section 106 deferral request contained in this report and to agree that this obligation can be paid in instalments.

 

The County Council has previously received a s106 deferral request from David Wilson Homes in relation to their Papworth Bypass contribution for their development at Summersfield, Papworth Everard (planning permission for 359 dwellings).  Approximately two thirds of the scheme was funded by the Department for Transport, with the remaining third coming from developer s106 contributions.  The road itself has now been completed and opened but there is one final s106 contribution which has not been received.

The outstanding contribution is from the final Quadrant of the Summersfield development which is yet to commence.  Commencement of the development would trigger the final s106 Papworth Bypass payment of £810,000 index linked to the time of payment. Cabinet previously considered and refused a deferral request for the full £810,000 Papworth Bypass contribution on 8th September 2009 (The developer, David Wilson Homes, was seeking deferral of the full amount and was proposing to pay in January 2010) on the grounds that the Papworth Bypass has already been completed and the County Council required the contribution as soon as possible as reimbursement for the money it had already spent.

The developers have since stated that they still could not afford to start the final Quadrant of the Summersfield development under the current arrangements of the s106 agreement and had produced financial evidence to support their claim which has now been accepted by Officers (demonstrating that significant investment will be required to provide internal roads, drainage and sewerage etc. prior to building the first houses resulting in development being currently unviable).  Therefore in order to progress with the development, the developer sought to pay the Bypass contribution in instalments to ease cashflow until some houses were built and sold. Cabinet accepted that this proposal was now also the best way to try to ensure the outstanding payment was eventually received by the Council.