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A local authority is sitting on almost £20 million of unused funds meant for health, education and leisure projects. But as local democracy reporter Robert Boddy found out, getting to the bottom of why the cash has not been spent isn’t easy. Medway Council has banked £19.
5 million in contributions from housing developers it granted permission to. Their payments, which are called Section 106 agreements (S106), are an important and long-standing part of the planning process. The arrangements are for set sums to be given to support projects which benefit the general public and limit the impact of the new houses.
After being agreed, developers can begin work - paying the contributions when they reach a trigger point in the construction schedule. However, Freedom of Information (FoI) requests submitted by KentOnline show issues with money getting to where it was initially intended. As of December, Medway held £4 million of S106 cash for schools and education, £3.
1 million for community centres and museums, and £5.3 million for open spaces. Health contributions While some funding is regularly collected and spent on schemes it’s allocated for, over the last 12 years only 1.
5% of money collected for health projects has been spent. In fact, the overall unspent amount for health and social care amounts to £2.4 million.
And, of the £4 million agreed with developers since 2013, just £1.2 million has been collected with only £17,846 spent. This £1.
2 million was for projects including equipment at the Lordswood Healthy Living Centre, improvements to facilities at the Allhallows branch of the Elms Medical Practice, and the development of the Primary Care Network in Rainham. In total, funding from 40 different agreements has been received by Medway Council, but only two projects have actually seen money spent. A £9,446.
36 sum from a 2014 agreement for development on Richmond Road, Gillingham, was used for “healthcare services”. While another £8,400 was spent from a £9,197.96 agreement from 2020 for a development in Twydall, which was used for a health pod in the Woodlands Family Practice, Gillingham.
The largest S106 contribution collected for a single development was £180,869.99 for a 300-home scheme on land at Otterham Quay Lane, Rainham. This was agreed to be used for improvements to GP services at the Rainham Healthy Living Centre, the Thames Avenue Surgery or the Maidstone Road Surgery.
But none of the money has yet been spent despite being received by the council. Out of the five Towns and Hoo Peninsula, Chatham is the place with the most health-based S106 funding currently held by the council, at £406,000. Second is the peninsula, with £346,850 of developer contributions having been received by the authority.
Time limits are set for the funding, meaning if it’s not spent by a certain deadline the developer can request the money be returned. Deadlines range between five and 10 years - but Medway Council says it has never had to return any funding. However, another FOI revealed £175,000 of S106 funding agreements for health projects was allowed to expire before the money was even collected by the council.
The campaigner The Home Builders’ Federation, through the submission of FOIs, found nationally that £8 billion of S106 contributions are being held by councils. Retired Rainham resident Maggie Francis, 73, first became aware of S106s in 2015 when she was fighting against a housing developer’s appeal of a refusal to build across the street from her home. Despite her efforts, the appeal was successful - but she was told the saving grace would be developer contributions towards improving facilities in her area.
However, once the homes were built, she didn’t see the benefits the funding was supposed to bring. Since then, she and her husband Ivor estimate they’ve sent more than 1,000 emails to councillors, MPs, council officers, healthcare professionals, and housing companies to try and find out where the money has gone. She says she’s had varying success, with politicians of all colours, as well as officers, initially enthusiastic to help before gradually losing interest and then ignoring her emails.
The former teacher said: “All we hear is councils are pleading poverty while council tax (for existing and new residents) and other local charges are constantly rising. “But nationally, there’s over £8 billion in council coffers just sitting there. “I have tried over the past 11 years to discover where and when the money will be spent in Medway.
“There is initial enthusiasm from council officials, local councillors representing any party, but I’m told it is too complicated to explain, directed to websites (which frequently contradict the argument they are trying to prove). “When the going gets too much for whoever it is, they slink away and refuse to discuss any further - why is it such a secret? “I am absolutely appalled this money is not being used at all, never mind as specified.” But despite the slow progress she’s made in trying to get answers, she says the development which started it all is what keeps her asking questions 11 years later.
She continued: “What keeps me going is the fact when I open my front door I can see straight into people’s toilets - they’re 15 metres from my front door. “I see that everyday and it just reminds me I was told I would get something in return for this, better services and all that. From having an open field right outside my door, I now have 14 roofs, there’s a car park right next door to my garden.
“And the way I’ve been treated - I may be an old lady, but you do not treat an old lady the way I’ve been treated, treading me into the ground. “I’ve spoken with lots of councillors and they always start off keen and then something happens, and eventually they stop responding and when I poke and poke, they tell me to go away. “My argument with all this is just tell me that I’m wrong.
That’s all I want. You tell me I’m barking up the wrong tree. Why are they not responding?” Council response KentOnline asked Medway why the money collected since 2013 hadn’t been spent, and why £175,000 of agreements had been allowed to expire.
We also enquired whether the fact money was sitting unspent would undermine the public’s faith in developer contributions, and what it was doing to ensure it would be used. A spokesperson said: “The S106 team keep all potential and received contributions under review and work with the relevant services within the council, the NHS and other third parties to identify suitable projects that can utilise S106 funds in line with the specific wording in each agreement. “There can be a long time between the original request from a service or the NHS for a S106 contribution, and the receipt of the contributions, which is usually partway through development construction.
“The specific needs identified in response to a development’s impact can change in that time but the council will always continue to work towards an appropriate use of the funds. “In some instances, contributions from multiple agreements need to be collected before a project becomes deliverable. “Therefore, the agreements allow up to 10 years between receipt of funds and their use on a project, or no time limit if the funds have been provided by the developer in a unilateral undertaking.
“It takes time and planning to spend some contributions but the team continue to work with those services and third-party partners to ensure the funds are utilised appropriately. “The council ringfences the funds and releases them when the project is being delivered.” Chief planning officer Dave Harris told KentOnline the issue of getting the NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB) to request the funds collected had been a long-term frustration.
He said the council was having regular meetings in order to make it aware and pressure it to use the funds available, as Medway is unable to spend the money on services itself. The ICB KentOnline then asked the ICB why it had not requested the funds and what it was doing to make sure the money was used before it would be eligible for return. A spokesman said: “We request S106 funding when there is an identified and approved project to allocate the funding to.
“Where we have an opportunity to pool S106 funding contributions, we will sometimes do so where appropriate. “There can be a significant time lag between the S106 contribution being secured through the planning application, the development starting and getting to a stage where the contribution is due. “Due to the time lag, the ICB may consider that a different project from that proposed originally is required and we will discuss this with Medway Council.
“The £2.4 million of S106 funding is made up of more than 70 different contributions from separate S106 legal agreements all with different, sometimes very specific, requirements set out for the spend. “Medway and Swale Health and Care Partnership’s (HCP) estates strategy is informing local work to identify projects that respond to the population growth and support delivery of clinical strategies in line with population health need and increased use; this will continue to evolve as plans are further defined.
“A fifth healthy living centre in the Pentagon centre in Chatham is under construction. This new £15 million development has been funded primarily through central NHS capital funds, additional funding from Medway Council and we expect more than £450,000 of Section 106 contributions to be used in this project. “It is an excellent example of the NHS and council working collaboratively to address healthcare needs for the local population.
” It also said the ICB and Medway Council meet to discuss S106 contributions and £159,000 of contributions had been used since 2021. KentOnline then specifically asked about funds, such as £33,000 which was collected in 2017 for the 68 homes built off Brompton Farm Road, Strood, but remains unspent. We asked if there was really no project in the intervening eight years which that money could have been used for, instead of just being held in a council bank account.
The ICB said: “NHS Kent and Medway is aware that some of the funding was available for use several years ago and has not yet been spent. “We cannot confirm what projects may or may not have been considered before the integrated care board was formed but we can confirm we will continue to review all Section 106 contributions available as set out in our previous response.”.
