THURROCK Council is sitting on more than £12million in contributions from developers, some of which could be lost, it has emerged reports the Local Democracy Reporter.
Council legal teams are said to be hurriedly looking of ways of retaining contributions from developers during the planning process before agreements expire.
Since 2005, Thurrock Council has received more than £49million in Section 106 contributions; and spent more than £42million.
These contributions can be used for a range of infrastructure schemes including highways, education, healthcare and community projects.
The total funds currently available to Thurrock Council amount to more than £12.6million of which almost £11million is committed to schemes and £1.6million is yet to be committed.
A planning review in 2023 found that “the lack of a strategic investment programme meant that the potential for development contributions via Section 106 agreements was being compromised”. The review added: “contributions received were being under-utilised. The unclear governance and decision-making around the funds and spending was also highlighted as a critical issue. “ Thurrock’s place overview and scrutiny committee, which met on Wednesday, heard extra staff had been pulled in to deal with a backlog s106 agreements.
Speaking at the meeting, Roy Jones, vice chairman of the committee, said: “This is an ongoing process. We know that and it’s great that we got started on this a few months ago.
“Quite a lot has been identified that needs to be checked. There were expiry dates on some of the money we got from developers. I like to think you have taken note of the most urgent ones rather than us pay any money back.”
In response, Lee Watson, councillor responsible for good growth, said: “Every single agreement has gone through, pushing the priorities first on the ones that are going to expire. There are a lot of agreements that we have pushed back into legal to start looking at how we can use these agreements or how we can change the agreements or what needs to be done in order to keep hold of that money.
There is quite a few there, we’re not disputing that but we’re trying to push that through really quickly.”
Conservative councillor, David Day, was delighted to learn that there is £97,000 in the kitty for Orsett.
Following the findings a new system of governance for s106 funds was set up. The Thurrock Strategic Infrastructure Board now monitors the funds.
Community forums have been meeting to discuss how the funds should be spent.