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7 Funding and Delivery

7.0.1 Good infrastructure planning considers the infrastructure required to support development and its associated cost, source of funding, timescale for delivery responsibility for delivery and any gap in funding.

7.0.2 Infrastructure planning forms an important part of the evidence base for the Joint Core Strategy.  The test of soundness includes whether the plan is deliverable, so an understanding of what infrastructure is needed and how it will be delivered is key to this.

7.0.3 Infrastructure planning is an integrated process which is reliant on the input of private, public and voluntary service providers to co-ordinate delivery.

7.0.4 This Emergent Joint Core Strategy highlights the key known capacity issues with respect to existing infrastructure, seeks to promote more efficient use of existing infrastructure and provides an indication of the main infrastructure requirements associated with each of the growth options.

7.0.5 Work on the infrastructure evidence base is ongoing to provide more information about when the infrastructure is required, anticipated costs and how it will be funded, to inform the next draft of the Joint Core Strategy.

7.0.6 As part of the ongoing work, the infrastructure evidence base will be further:

• Aligned with service providers own investment plans, some of which are currently under preparation.
• Verified with service providers to further understand the implications of the growth options presented in this plan.
• Validated and tested to ensure that the costs and timescales identified are robust.
• Matched against existing funding programmes to understand what can be funded and if there is a gap, which may be met by developer contributions.

7.0.7 Government Guidance (Circular 05/2005) is clear that developer contributions should not be used to resolve existing deficiencies in infrastructure provision.  Therefore providing a quality, shared evidence base will support the delivery of required infrastructure by:

• Providing a means of working in partnership with the public, private and voluntary sectors to deliver services which meet West Northamptonshire’s long term needs.
• Highlighting existing infrastructure deficits which national and regional funding sources should be pursued to resolve.
• Confirming the new infrastructure requirements needed to support the growth options and the contribution that developers will be expected to make.

7.0.8 To support the Joint Core Strategy’s approach, an Affordable Housing and Developer Contributions Development Plan Document will be progressed.  This will focus upon the infrastructure requirements developers will be expected to provide and determine the most appropriate mechanism to secure developer contributions consistently across West Northamptonshire.