Our adopted Local Plan includes several policies to secure contributions to mitigate the impact of new development through the delivery of new or improved infrastructure and facilities. These can include, amongst other things, on-site affordable housing provision or financial contributions to be used off-site towards health, education, highways works or improvements of our parks and play areas.
These are known as planning obligations or S106 obligations.
Planning obligations are secured through a legal agreement under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 between the council and a developer, and other third parties as necessary. For example, these may include other owners of the application site or Essex County Council Highway Authority.
The requirement for these contributions will be subject to the scale and type of development proposed, alongside the relevant Local Plan policy requirements. A S106 Legal Agreement will be required for most major scale applications (defined as 10 dwellings or more, 1,000 square metres of floorspace, sites over 1 hectares etc).
A unilateral undertaking (UU) is a simplified version of a legal agreement, usually relating to minor development, such as new dwellings (1-9 units). UUs are also made under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 but entered into by a person with an interest in the land, without the local planning authority.
Planning obligations run with the land, are legally binding and enforceable.
Once the planning officer has established the planning obligations relevant to the application (having regard to relevant policies and statutory consultee responses), an instruction will be sent to our legal team setting out the agreed Heads of Terms, details of any person(s) that need to be a party to the agreement and your solicitor’s contact details.
Our legal team will work with your legal team to complete the S106, liaising the planning officer where necessary.
We can prepare the legal agreement for you (to be reviewed by your solicitor) or we can review a draft legal agreement you have provided (drafted by your solicitor). There is a fee for both, but these vary depending on the complexity of the agreement, so we are unable to provide a scale of charges. Our solicitor will agree estimated costs with your solicitor prior to undertaking the work required.
The Essex Coast Recreational Disturbance Avoidance and Mitigation Strategy (RAMS) applies to all new residential development within the Tendring District (development involving a net increase in dwellings).
The current RAMS tariff is £163.86 per dwelling (from 1st April 2024).
From the 1st of April 2024, for smaller scale residential developments a condition will be imposed on any grant of planning permission to secure the completion of a Unilateral Undertaking (UU) to ensure the RAMS contribution is paid, prior to commencement of development.
To satisfy a RAMS condition and allow a condition to be formally discharged, a completed UU must be submitted with a Discharge of Condition application. There is no longer a need for RAMS UUs to be prepared during the planning application and prior to decision. We cannot accept up-front payments of the contribution.
We can prepare the UU for you (to be reviewed by your solicitor) or we can review a draft you have provided (drafted by your solicitor). Please see the Preparation of a UU section below.
If your application is subject to other planning obligations requiring a S106 to be completed prior to determination, the RAMS contribution will be included within one agreement and the condition will not be imposed.
Biodiversity net gain is a way of creating and improving biodiversity by requiring development to have a positive impact (‘net gain’) on biodiversity. Under the statutory framework for biodiversity net gain, subject to some exceptions, every grant of planning permission is deemed to have been granted subject to the condition that the biodiversity gain objective is met (“the biodiversity gain condition”).
Following the approval of the planning application, a Biodiversity Gain Plan must be submitted and approved prior to the commencement of that development, via the Discharge of Condition application process.
To satisfy the BNG condition and allow the condition to be formally discharged, a completed UU must be submitted with a Discharge of Condition application.
We can prepare the UU for you (to be reviewed by your solicitor) or we can review a draft you have provided (drafted by your solicitor). Please see the Preparation of a UU section below.
If your application is subject to other planning obligations requiring a S106 to be completed prior to determination, it may be possible to include the BNG requirements within one S106 agreement.
If your application has been approved subject to a condition relating to RAMS or BNG (or both), you will need to submit a Discharge of Condition application to formally approve and discharge the requirements of the condition(s).
The Council’s Legal Team can draft the Unilateral Undertaking for you. They can also check the acceptability of a UU that has been prepared by another solicitor. Charges are incurred for these services.
We strongly recommend that you submit your request to prepare (or check) a UU prior to submitting the Discharge of Condition application to prevent any delays.
Prior to submitting your Discharge of Condition application, we can prepare the UU for you, or check one that you have already drafted.
Please complete the application form available via the link below.
The form must be e-mailed to uuadmin@tendringdc.gov.uk, and must be accompanied by:
• Up to date Land Registry title documents / transfer documents (including proof of lodging with Land Registry).
• The appropriate fee.
• A Word version of the drafted UU (for check requests only)
The current fee for drafting a Unilateral Undertaking is £112.
We can also obtain copies of Title Documents on your behalf at an additional charge of £6 per title.
The fee to check the acceptability of an agreement prepared by a solicitor is £76.
Please note that the fees detailed above do not include any additional legal expenses that may be incurred, nor does it include the contributions that are secured within the Legal Agreement.
Request for up-front payments of the contributions will not be accepted.
To pay the relevant fee by credit/debit card, please call 01255 686190.
Once your request is received, it will be registered and undergo checks to ensure we have all the necessary information to instruct our Legal Team. We will contact you if we have any queries.
Once our Legal Team are instructed, they will check the information, resolve any queries if necessary and draft the agreement. It will be sent to you for the relevant parties to sign.
You should then send the completed agreement back to our Legal Team. The agreement will be registered as a charge on the Local Land Charges register.
We will instruct our Legal Team to undertake a review of the draft provided.
If they have any suggested revisions, you will be contacted to make the changes, and they will work with you to arrive at a finalised version of the agreement. If this incurs additional charges outside of the £76, then we will let you know.
Once the agreement is finalised it should be sent, by you, to the relevant parties to sign. You should then send the completed agreement back to our Legal Team. The agreement will be registered as a charge on the Local Land Charges register.
Once you have the completed agreement you can progress discharging the relevant condition(s) on the planning permission.
Before you commence the development, you should notify us at obligations@tendringdc.gov.uk so that we may calculate the contribution fee.
The contributions will be index linked using the index from two months prior to the date of the agreement as the base index and the index from two months before the date of payment.
S106 agreements are a legal charge on the land and the obligations will transfer automatically to successive owners in title.
To pay the fee detailed above by credit/debit card, or if you have any queries about the process, please call 01255 686190.
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