Issue - meetings

Background:

The report set out that the Section 106 (S106) team had collected S106 contributions from developments within Hoo St Werburgh and Chattenden parish area towards new or improved community facilities within the area.

The report sought agreement to transfer these funds to Hoo St Werburgh & Chattenden Parish Council (Hoo Parish Council) to support their project to build a replacement community village hall at Pottery Road, Hoo St Werburgh.

Reasons:

There has been a significant number of new developments in and around Hoo St Werburgh in recent years. The existing village hall needs a major refurbishment and in addition it cannot accommodate the pressures of an increase in residents from the new developments using this community facility.

S106 agreements have been agreed and secured for these new developments in the Hoo area with contributions that are specifically to go to community facilities or a replacement community centre near the developments. Some of these developments have been built and the contributions collected and pooled to support the provision of a replacement village hall. There are some developments that have not yet reached the trigger requiring payment of the contributions but these will be collected when they do.

The amount of funding available is over £1m and is above the amount allowed for officer approval under the scheme of delegation. Therefore, this requires Cabinet approval to enable transfer of the funds.

Hoo Parish Council are planning to construct a replacement village hall and demolish the existing hall so the contributions need to be transferred to them to enable the project to proceed. This will ensure the contributions are spent as set out within the S106 agreements.</AI5><AI6>