Section 106 planning obligations

Guidance on planning obligations.

Section 106 (S106) agreements are legal agreements entered pursuant to Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 between the local planning authority and those with an interest in land to be developed, usually in conjunction with the grant of planning permission. S106 agreements are attached to the land, binding it and whoever owns it.

Also referred to as planning obligations, S106 agreements may provide for financial contributions to be made by the developer to compensate for any loss or damage caused by the development, or to mitigate a development’s wider impact.

S106 obligations may also be used to secure particular types of use (for example, as affordable housing or affordable workspace) or to manage the way in which the development is to be constructed or occupied (for example, requiring delivery of employment and training initiatives during the construction of the development, requiring limits on carbon emissions or restricting the issue of parking permits once built).

The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Regulations 2010 as amended now allow the Council to fund infrastructure projects from both CIL and S106. A S106 planning obligation may only be sought if the obligation is:

(a) necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms;

(b) directly related to the development; and

(c) fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the development.

Policy D4 of the Lambeth Local Plan 2021 sets out the Council’s overall policy for seeking planning obligations. Other development plan policies also refer to the use of planning obligations in different circumstances.

For some obligations, charging approaches for monetary contributions are set out in Annex 9 of the Lambeth Local Plan 2021, with further information in the relevant policies about how and when these charging approaches will be used.

The Council is required to monitor and enforce planning obligations entered into under Section 106 agreements. Before the end of a calendar year, the Council will produce annual infrastructure funding statements providing details of receipts and expenditure for both CIL and S106 at the end of the previous financial year ending in March of that calendar year.