Windsor & Maidenhead: Boyer reduces CIL rate to nil
Wokingham-based national planning consultancy Boyer was engaged to make representations against the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s (RBWM) £150 per sq m large office Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) rate.
In his report of June 13 the examiner, using much of the company’s development economics teams’ evidence, determined that the office CIL rate was unjustified and reduced it to nil.
The main arguments successfully put forward by the Boyer team included:
- The Council’s evidence wrongly calculated office scheme value based on Gross Internal Area (GIA) rather than Net Internal Area (NIA) resulting in over-inflated Gross Development Values (GDVs) of between 15%-20%;
- The benchmark land value, especially in prominent office locations such as Maidenhead, used in the Council’s analysis were too low and not reflective of existing use values nor market reality; and
- The evidence used disregarded the Council’s own local plan policies which promoted office development in key locations such as Maidenhead town centre.
In reducing the large office CIL rate from £150 sqm to nil, office schemes greater than 2,000 sq m of new office floor space could save up to £300,000.
* The Community Infrastructure Levy took over from the previous ‘planning gain’ obligations that some developers had to build into their projects to satisfy the wishes of the planning authorities.
