Schemes of 10 or more homes, all non-residential building and householder extensions would drop out of the levy. Comments close 11.59pm on 17 September.

Every housing scheme of 10 or more homes in the Sevenoaks district would stop paying the Community Infrastructure Levy under a draft charging schedule now out for comment. So would every supermarket, warehouse and office, and every householder extension. Comments close at 11.59pm on 17 September 2026. (Sevenoaks District Council, Draft Community Infrastructure Levy charges)

CIL is a fixed charge in pounds per square metre, paid when building starts, on the extra floorspace a development creates. Sevenoaks District Council has charged it since 4 August 2014 and raised £3,752,237.06 from it in 2024/25 alone. (Sevenoaks District Council, Infrastructure Funding Statement April 2024 to March 2025)

The consultation opened on 6 August. It has not been written up on the council’s news pages, where the most recent item is still the Family Fun Days notice of 6 August, so it has run for two and a half weeks with no announcement. (Sevenoaks District Council, Latest news) It closes on the same day as the Local Plan Regulation 19 consultation.

What stays in and what drops out

The draft schedule applies to one thing only: residential development creating between one and nine dwellings.

Everything below is listed in the draft as falling outside the schedule:

  • residential development creating 10 or more dwellings
  • all non-residential development
  • householder applications
  • any other development that does not create between one and nine homes

(Sevenoaks District Council, Draft CIL Charging Schedule)

Two of those are charged today. Supermarkets and superstores over 500 square metres of sales floorspace pay £209.25 per square metre, and so does retail warehousing over the same threshold. That is the Area A residential rate, and unlike homes it applies right across the district. (Sevenoaks District Council, Community Infrastructure Levy Charging Schedule, adopted February 2014)

Large home extensions are caught too. The council’s guidance tells applicants CIL “applies to residential extensions and outbuildings, supermarkets, convenience stores and retail warehousing where the proposed floor space is 100 square metres or more”. (Sevenoaks District Council, CIL guidance for planning applicants)

Graphic comparing what would still pay the Community Infrastructure Levy, schemes of one to nine homes at 209 pounds 25 per square metre in Area A and 125 pounds 55 in Area B, against what would no longer pay: schemes of ten or more homes, all non-residential development, supermarkets, retail warehousing and householder applications
Graphic by Sevenoaks Online, from the council's draft charging schedule and its 2024/25 Infrastructure Funding Statement.

The rates themselves do not change

The draft schedule presents two rates: £209.25 per square metre in Area A and £125.55 per square metre in Area B. The council calls them “the updated CIL rates”. (Sevenoaks District Council, CIL Charging Schedule Review FAQs)

They are the rates already being charged. The council’s own applicant guidance lists £209.25 and £125.55 as the “2026 revised charging rates after indexation applied”, in force for permissions granted from 1 January 2026. The 2014 base rates were £125 and £75, and the RICS index used to uplift them has moved from 239 to 400.

So the price per square metre is unchanged for the homes that stay in scope. What changes is who pays at all. The council is not proposing to move the Area A and Area B boundaries either.

Area B, the lower rate, covers Swanley, Hextable, Crockenhill and Well Hill, Farningham, Horton Kirby and South Darenth, Fawkham and West Kingsdown, Hartley and Hodsoll Street, Ash and New Ash Green, and both Edenbridge wards. Area A, the higher rate, is the rest of the district, including Sevenoaks town, Otford and Shoreham, Kemsing, Eynsford, Westerham and the Weald villages.

One caution for anyone doing sums: the worked example on the council’s guidance page multiplies by £204.50, not the £209.25 in the table directly above it. Use the figure on your liability notice.

Why the council says it is doing this

The council’s case is that CIL has been good at small things and bad at big ones. Its FAQ document gives three reasons for taking major development out.

  • CIL “has not generated enough funding for larger-scale strategic infrastructure”, because it is one pot stretched across the whole district
  • CIL money “can be spent anywhere in the District, not necessarily in the area where specific developments take place”
  • CIL payments “often need to be pooled over several years before a large project can be funded”, which delays delivery

Instead, major residential and all non-residential schemes would mitigate their impact through Section 106 agreements, negotiated site by site. The council argues these can be phased, so that a school or a junction upgrade is tied to a trigger such as “before the 50th home is occupied”, and can secure land and direct delivery rather than only cash. (Sevenoaks District Council, CIL Charging Schedule Review FAQs)

The rates have to be justified by viability evidence, which the council commissioned from Dixon Searle Partnership and published as the Local Plan and CIL Viability Assessment Stage 2 Final Report in June 2026. (Sevenoaks District Council, Local Plan and CIL Viability Assessment Stage 2 final report)

Parish councils may get less

Town and parish councils receive a share of every CIL payment made in their area. Nationally that share is 15%, rising to 25% where a neighbourhood plan is in place. Sevenoaks has been more generous since a Cabinet decision in November 2015. Every town and parish here gets the equivalent of 25% of the higher residential rate, whichever charging area the development sits in. In 2024/25 that came to £528,661.54 across the district.

The share is not changing. The pool it is drawn from is. The council’s own FAQ concedes the point directly: “this may result in reduced payments in some areas, simply because fewer developments will fall within the CIL-liable category”, and it calls the change “challenging for Town and Parish Councils”.

Its answer is that parishes should push their priorities through the Infrastructure Delivery Plan and through comments on individual planning applications, so that what they want is written into Section 106 agreements instead.

What CIL has already bought locally makes the stake concrete. The Greatness Football and Community Centre, finishing next month, took £787,500 of it. That was the single largest slice of the pavilion’s £2.1m cost. (Greatness pavilion: £2.1m build to finish next month)

The 2024/25 statement records these awards:

  • £250,000 to the Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve redevelopment
  • £158,000 to Orchards Academy’s sports hall and facilities
  • £75,000 to Sevenoaks Indoor Bowls Club solar panels
  • £17,000 to West Kingsdown Village Hall car park

Since 2014, 62% of all CIL awarded has gone to community facilities, 14% to health and social care, 12% to blue and green infrastructure and 10% to highways and transport.

What it means for you

If you are planning a large extension, this matters to your budget. A householder application over 100 square metres is CIL-liable today and would not be under the new schedule. The catch is timing: nothing changes yet.

The council expects to submit the schedule for independent examination alongside the Local Plan, with adoption of both “anticipated in early 2028”. The new schedule would then apply only to planning permissions issued after that date. Anything granted between now and then pays under the current rules. (Sevenoaks District Council, CIL Charging Schedule Review FAQs)

If you live near one of the Local Plan’s larger allocations, the change decides how the infrastructure around it gets paid for. The biggest, around 1,500 homes between Dunton Green station and Otford Road, is far past the 10-dwelling threshold, so under the draft it would contribute nothing to CIL and everything through a negotiated Section 106 agreement. (1,500 homes north of Sevenoaks: what the brief promises)

To comment, use the council’s consultation portal, email Planning.Policy@sevenoaks.gov.uk, or write to the Strategic Planning Team, Sevenoaks District Council, Council Offices, Argyle Road, Sevenoaks TN13 1HG. A paper questionnaire can be downloaded from the consultation page. The deadline is 11.59pm on 17 September 2026.

You can check what is proposed near your own address on the council’s planning portal, and our guide to Sevenoaks planning applications explains how to search it and how to comment.

Sources

Image: New housing development by N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Geograph.