The Government has published in draft the Community Infrastructure Levy (Amendment) Regulations 2012. The draft Regulations seek to make a limited number of corrections to the current Regulations, including dealing with the much debated issue of CIL applying to planning permission granted under s.73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the potential for double counting that arises from this.

The effect of the current Regulations is that planning permission issued pursuant to s.73 may attract full CIL liability even if CIL has been paid for the original permission or if a charging schedule has come into force since the date of the original permission. The draft Regulations will put in place set-off provisions so that CIL will only have to be paid for any increase in floorspace under the s.73 permission.

The draft Regulations also address the potential to overcharge in the formula for calculating the area of chargeable development where parts of existing buildings are to be retained and other buildings are to be demolished. The formula, however, remains complex. Other amendments relate to the application of CIL to Neighbourhood Development Orders and Social Housing Relief.

The draft Regulations do not address the more fundamental campaign within the industry to pause the application of CIL. We expect these draft Regulations and the practical application of the CIL Regulations to provide a continuing source of debate.

This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq

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The original publication date for this article was 16/10/2012.