COMMUNITY SERVICES AND DEVELOPER CONTRIBUTIONS

3.21 The vitality and vibrancy of a community depends on the level of interaction between the people who live there and the activities in which they become involved. Access to jobs and housing are important, but so, too, is the availability of a wide range of community services and sport, leisure and recreational facilities.

3.22 Community services take many forms, including educational facilities, healthcare facilities, community centres, churches, libraries, meeting rooms, halls, and shops and services of all types. Their distribution, the quality of services, and the level of access varies throughout the North East and therefore affects the structure plan aim of connecting communities.

3.23 Lack of access to facilities especially affects disadvantaged groups such as older people, the young, those on low incomes or without access to a car. This is particularly so in the remoter rural areas and in some urban areas. The structure plan strategy directs new development to locations where access to existing services and facilities exists or can be enhanced. Sometimes this may require developers to contribute towards the provision of facilities to make good a shortfall created by development. However, developers can only make contributions that relate to the size and nature of their development and cannot be expected to make good any existing deficiencies within the area. The strategy also encourages the providers of services and facilities to locate or retain a presence in places that are accessible to all sectors of the community and where the vitality and viability of existing communities will be maintained or enhanced as a result.

3.24 New development, whether employment or housing related, can place a strain on existing services and generate the need for new community provision. Developers, in conjunction with the local authority, may be required to assess the impact of their proposal and if this exercise shows that the development will produce a significant negative effect (commonly some form of greater congestion of existing facilities), then it should be compensated.

3.25 In appropriate cases, contributions will be sought from developers towards:

• infrastructure without which development cannot proceed, such as sustainable urban drainage, water supply, waste water treatment facilities or transport infrastructure and services;

• new or extended essential facilities, such as schools;

• new or extended social facilities, for example libraries, community centres, areas of open space, churches or sports facilities;

• the provision of services throughout the lifetime of a development, where unusually high costs might be incurred; and

• any other elements necessary to mitigate the loss of amenity which would be brought about by the development and without which the development would be unacceptable.