Section 106 agreements and unspent developer contributions in England and Wales report

Our ‘Section 106 Agreements and Unspent Developer Contributions in England and Wales’ report finds that local authorities could be collectively holding £2.8 billion in unused home builder contributions, with an average of £8m in Section 106 Contributions held unspent per council.

The report is based on Freedom of Information (FOI) responses from 171 local authorities, constituting 50% of all local authorities in England and Wales. The 171 respondents hold a total of £1.4 billion in unspent developer contributions. Extrapolating these findings across all local councils suggests that almost £2.8bn is held unspent in contributions from home builders.

Home builders are required to make Section 106 contributions to local authorities as part of the process of securing planning permission. The purpose of the funding is to invest in community services, facilities and affordable housing to ensure local people benefit from development within their area. The report reaffirms the need for developers’ contributions to be spent according to their negotiated purpose and within their agreed time limit, rather than returned to developers or left unspent.

For members, the data for each local authority that responded to our request can be found here.