Hi Ashley - it would probably be easier to know I was giving good tips or advice after we know whether the plan and CIL gets through the examination!
The timescales and political changes in terms of some of our key sites have been the most challenging aspect – our pre-submission draft was June 2012 and we had viability work done in the run-up to that, we submitted a year later (with changes to some of our more strategic sites and supplementary viability work) and were held up a further year on having to re-run our SHMA and SHLAA following an exploratory meeting. Our viability evidence today is therefore not as up to date as it could be – but we are at least in a position where economically things are looking better, so the viability outputs we have at least can be seen as even more conservative than the likely reality. If the economy had declined I think we may have felt it best to re-run the viability evidence yet again. Also 2 years is quite a long time in terms of IDP and Reg 123 lists, so these are being refreshed. Not to mention in changes to CIL legislation...
We have had external consultants help with the viability appraisal work at the previous stages and are using them for the examination. This was even though we had a RICS qualified s106 and viability expert in-house, he advised that it was more practical to out-source this element – and a good thing given turnover in staffing as it has turned out – even I have now left the council to set up independently!
Hope this helps - Jo
