Levy is scrapped

Nov 11 2008 by Les Stewart, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

A CONTROVERSIAL plan to make housebuilders contribute towards the cost of schools has been scrapped by Perth and Kinross Council.

The levy would have resulted in them paying hundreds of thousands of pounds to the local authority.

The council has also ditched new 2m2 standards, which drastically reduced the capacity of local schools.

Plans for the levy provoked an immediate backlash from Homes for Scotland, the representative body for most of major housebuilders.

They accused the council of “ripping off” local companies and claimed that the levy was illegal.

Now, in a letter to Alan Lundmark, of Homes for Scotland, the council have indicated that they are “dispensing” with the interim contributions policy.

They have also stated that in respect of current planning applications, they will not be applying the 2m2 standards to determine the capacity of schools.

The council’s first attempt at introducing a levy was in February, 2007.

It followed a report to the lifelong learning committee advocating the same space standards in existing primary schools which were then being used in new primary schools.

The standard was referred to as 2m2, meaning two square metres per child.

Housebuilders pointed out that the application of the standard resulted in more than 40 of the 76 primary schools in Perth and Kinross being classed as “full”.

Over about 18 months, officers were holding up applications in the catchment areas of the “full” schools and demanding applicants pay £3000 per house proposed – or the application would be refused.

Over that period, the demands totalled about £1.8 million – and at least 60 applicants received a cash request.

In September, the council considered a Mark 2 attempt to introduce a levy, overcoming, as they saw it, the deficiencies of the first one.

The developer contribution rates were: £3,083 for a one-bedroom dwelling and £6,166 for two or more bedrooms.

But the builders considered this was equally flawed.

The council spokeswoman said: “We do not accept that this is illegal, as claimed by some developers, but, since we need a partnership approach to resolve these matters, we do not intend to debate this aspect with them but will try to amend our proposals in a way which they will be able to support.”