South Cambridgeshire District Council - Section 106 Agreement Data Input And Migration 2023

Planning obligations under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, commonly known as s106 agreements, are a mechanism used to make a development proposal acceptable in planning terms. They are focused on site specific mitigation of the impact of development by way of either the direct provision of infrastructure (both on and off site of the development) and through the payment of financial contributions to the local planning authority.

The section 106 information relating to Cambridge City Council are recorded in a bespoke Microsoft Access database built around the year 2000 and contains details relating to around 1,600 agreements (excluding deeds of variation). Information relating to agreements completed before then are held in a now dormant database. Section 106 records for South Cambridgeshire are similarly stored in a Microsoft Access database built in around 2009 and which stores records of around 1800 agreements (excluding deeds of variation).

GCSP has recently acquired a database from Exacom Systems Limited and now requires data contained within these section 106 agreements, along with the compliance held by GCSP in the current databases, needs to be uploaded onto Exacom.

From 1 April 2012 GCSP has completed 1010 section 106 agreements (excluding deeds of variation). Some of these agreements relate to appeals that were dismissed thereby reducing the number of the total number agreements to be migrated (this is estimated to be 20-40 agreements).

Around half of the total number of agreements are for minor developments which secure a small number of financial contributions only and where there are no obligations relating to (for example) affordable housing or public open space. The balance of agreements comprises a mix of major residential development schemes and commercial developments. Four example agreements are appended demonstrating the type of major and minor agreements that are to be expected.

The quantity of deeds of variation is unknown but is estimated to be in the region of 100, however, many of these are for the sole purpose of incorporating new mortgagee provisions relating to the affordable dwellings (i.e. monitored obligations are often unaffected).

Around 10 of these agreements relate to particularly large new settlements or urban extensions (i.e. those of 1000 dwellings or more). It is intended that the details relating to these developments will be uploaded by GCSP and are therefore excluded from the instruction.

GCSP is looking to upload data relating to around 1000 agreements as an initial undertaking. Further data migration of the balance is likely but the full extent of this will depend on cost.