Chichen and Egg

As we all know planning authorises are currently cash strapped and properly will be for the foreseeable future and as a result are not able to invest in infrastructure.  Without the infrastructure in place their hands are tied in permitting development, which in itself generates income for the Local Authority through Development Contributions... money that is meant to be used for the maintenance and provision of the said infrastructure.

We recently had a case, where a client wished to undertake a development in a reasonable sized town; from a planning perspective the proposal ticked all the boxes and was looked on favourably by the planners and sorted out many of their problems within the area, however a problem arose when it came to the infrastructure or the lack of capacity within the existing infrastructure. The Local Authority haven't the funding to upgrade the infrastructure, the client can't afford to, nor has access to funding to undertaken the necessary works to increase the capacity of the infrastructure to the required level of the Local Authority. The end result is no planning permission for the client, no contribution towards the upgrade of the infrastructure for the Local Authority meaning neither side wins.