CIL in Swindon

The Community Infrastructure Levy (also known as the CIL or 'the Levy') is the Government’s chosen approach to set a mandatory tariff on development. CIL will allow the council (also known as CIL Charging Authority ‘CA’) to raise funds from new development in its area. CIL receipts will contribute towards the improvement of facilities and services that are required to support the development and growth planned for Swindon.

Adopted community infrastructure levy charging schedule

The adopted CIL charging schedule became effective on Monday, 6 April 2015. All relevant development including but not limited to applications determined on or after that date will be subject to the consideration of CIL.

CIL was also relevant to some decisions under the Town & Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order on which decisions were made prior to this or works were by default permission allowed.

The CIL charging schedule was adopted by a meeting of the council on Thursday, 26 March 2015, after being recommended for adoption by Cabinet on Wednesday, 18 March 2015. This process followed an independent examination on Tuesday, 4 November 2014 and the publication of the CIL examination final report in February 2015. The requirements of the final report are incorporated into the adopted charging schedule.

The adopted charging schedule is one of the adopted documents that supports the operational management of CIL. 

The adopted documents contain the following: 

• CIL charging schedule (PDF)
• CIL surcharges policy (PDF)
• Adopted CIL payment by instalment policy (PDF)

The CIL Surcharges Policy simply contains in a single location information about all the relevant regulations through which surcharges may or must and late payment interest must apply. Swindon as CIL CA for its administrative area applies non-mandatory financial penalties by default.

The CIL rates in the Charging Schedule will be index linked in accordance with the CIL Regulation requirements. From the 1 September, 2019 the Council as CIL Charging Authority now has a requirement to publish its indexed rates in an Annual CIL Rate Summary in advance of the new indexation year.  This document also provides informal advice on when a CIL liability notice is likely to be issued, and the time at which planning permission first permits development for CIL purposes.

For more information on how indexation would affect development that generates a CIL liability notice, see the council’s CIL annual rate summary (PDF).

Regulation 123 of the CIL Regs. was deleted under the CIL Amendment Regulations 2019 2 SI 2019 1103. The Regulation 123 list was the list that previously indicated what s106 obligations would not be secured for.

The rates in the adopted charging schedule as published, are only relevant to calculate CIL liability until 31 December 2015.

Indexation will first be applied to the rates in the adopted CIL charging schedule on 1 January 2016, and subsequently on the 1 January annually. In applying indexation to the base CIL rate, the rate could increase, decrease or remain the same. The actual CIL rate generated by applying indexation is produced at the time CIL liability is being calculated. See the published Annual Rate summary above for more information.

CIL discretionary relief is not available for charities, social housing or exceptional circumstances. Information of CIL discretionary relief and how it could relate to development proposals if it were to be made available, is located on the Discretionary Relief from CIL Liability webpage.