New Homes Bonus - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)
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Started - July 2012
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Last activity - April
New Homes Bonus
I was just considering the New Homes Bonus in relation to Neighbourhood Planning. I was wondering if someone could tell me if the funding that a LA may receive because a Neighbourhood Plan / Neighbourhood Development Order has secured a 100 new houses can be channeled directly to Neighbourhood Groups / Parish Councils for their use on the issues that they see fit such as Nature Conservation, community facilities and more? Many thanks
The new homes bonus is not ringfenced and therefore can be spent on anything the Local Authority wishes to spend it on. The Government's intention is that it is spent on rewarding growth, and I presume that communities see some of the benefits of development taking place in their area. One way to do this would be to direct the spending of funds to the locality where the development generating the Bonus occured, but there is no requirement to do so.
Many thanks Harriet. My understanding is this could means an LA, should it wish to, could legally pass on the money to Neighbourhood Groups / Neighbourhood Planning Qualifying Bodies for them to spend and administer how they wish to spend it in their community.
Andrew Chalmers, modified 11 Years ago.
Re: New Homes Bonus
Advocate Posts: 169 Join Date: 20/10/11 Recent Posts
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And before people get too excited about lots of additional money, it is not. Remember that the government is funding future New Homes Bonus from top slicing £2bn from the National Grant pot for Local Government. So some authorities could well lose more in grant than is gained through NHB, so a safe assumption would be a neutral position that the grant a Council loses will be matched by the NHB received. This could well mean NHB being used simply to prop up ever shrinking council budgets. With budget cuts in my own authority of £40-50 million over the next two years, NHB will not plug more than 2-3% of the loss!