The Urban Mobility Partnership has today launched its latest report Unlocking Section 106 Funding for Transport: How to release Millions in Unspent Developer Contributions, which reveals that councils in England and Wales hold at least £5.3 billion unspent in their accounts.
Section 106 monies are funds paid to local authorities by developers as part of the planning approval process to offset the impact of development. The report urges reform of the system to allow this money to be more easily invested in local communities.
As an idea of just how significant this sum of money is, it is equal to the cost of building walking and cycling routes for 4,300 miles – the distance from London to Nairobi. At least £700 million of this money is earmarked specifically for transport related schemes. On its own, this money could transform active travel and mobility across the country.
View our map below, which shows the unspent funds from councils which reported in 2023/24.
As well as highlighting the scale of these unspent funds, our report makes a number of recommendations to unlock this money for infrastructure development. We have urged the government to provide time-limited, targeted support to help overstretched authorities self-audit their Section 106 accounts and recoup funds from stalled projects. We also recommend government updates guidance for councils clarifying how they can draft agreements to allow greater flexibility to reallocate funds after a reasonable period – such as five years – if a project stalls.
- Unclear central government guidance on how flexibly funds can be used.
- Uncertainty over whether money can be reallocated if circumstances change
- Inconsistent approaches between councils on how funds are collected, recorded and deployed.
To read the full report, please click below. If you would like to access the full data collected by UMP through its FOI requests, please email us at info@urbanmobilitypartnership.com.
