Gloucester City Council had to pay back £7,500 in developers’ contributions which could have gone towards a skate park back to Barratt Homes, it has been revealed.
The authority had failed to spend all of the £105,000 it received linked to a 49 homes planning application in Quedgeley.
The plans for Mayo’s Land off the Bristol Road were approved in 2013. And the section 106 agreement included £75,000 in contributions for formal sports facilities and £30,000 towards play areas.
However, the planning committee was told yesterday (April 1) that some of it had to be repaid. This information came to light as part of the six monthly report which updates councillors on whether or not developer contributions are being spent.
Failure to do so within a given time limit means the money, which should go towards local improvements, gets paid back to the developers. The report said there were nine active cases as of January this year with ongoing spend. These are well within their spend deadlines.
However, the report also said the Mayo’s land underspend has been repaid to the developer with accrued interest. Councillor Alastair Chambers (Community Independents, Matson, Robinswood and White City) asked how much had been repaid and what the reason was it had to go back to the developer.
Economic growth officer Nana Pierre said it was a combination of reasons which included staffing issues and the cyber incident which affected the authority. “The sum that was returned was £7,501 with interest,” she said.
“The reason for its return is the majority of the funds had been spent on what they were supposed to be spent. It was an excess.
"They had decided to use it on a skate park. Although the skate park was an afterthought, from what I understand.
"We had officers leave. There was no continuity around that. And also the cyber incident was another issue which affected that.
"That’s some of the reasons why that was returned.”
