Community Infrastructure Levy: How Much CIL Your Town or Parish Council Got in Folkestone & Hythe — and Where the Money Went (FHDC Data)

Across Folkestone & Hythe District, a distinct slice of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is passed out of the District Council’s hands and into the accounts of Town and Parish Councils. It is often described as “Neighbourhood CIL” or “Local CIL”, and it exists for a simple reason: when development happens in (say) Dymchurch, or Sellindge, part of the levy raised locally is meant to be available locally.

The legal rule is not vague. Under regulation 59C, a local council must use the neighbourhood CIL it receives to support the development of its area, including funding infrastructure or “anything else” concerned with addressing the demands that development places on the area. Put plainly: it is not restricted to a narrow “roads and drains only” list. It can fund a wider range of local improvements, so long as the council can justify the link to development pressure.

But with that flexibility comes an equally clear transparency duty. Under regulation 62A, any parish/town council that receives neighbourhood CIL is required to publish an annual report setting out what it received, what it spent, and what it retained. If money sits unspent for too long, or is used inappropriately, the charging authority has powers under regulation 59E to require repayment in certain circumstances. 

What FHDC’s own documents show: the flow of money

FHDC’s Infrastructure Funding Statements show that neighbourhood CIL passed to Town and Parish Councils has become a substantial cash stream. For the five financial years from 2020/21 to 2024/25, FHDC reports the following totals paid out:

• 2020/21: £69,457.60 

• 2021/22: £57,853.80 

• 2022/23: £218,691.74

• 2023/24: £234,440.06 

• 2024/25: £190,496.77

Those five years alone add up to about £771,000 being pushed down to the local tier (Town and Parish Councils). And FHDC reports that, since CIL began in the district (August 2016) up to 31 March 2025, the total passed to Town and Parish Councils is £838,279.64. 

One detail matters for how this is meant to work in practice. In areas without a neighbourhood plan, the neighbourhood portion is typically 15% (with a cap); where a neighbourhood plan is “made”, it rises to 25% (without the same cap). FHDC references this framework in its own reporting. FHDC also records an example of the cap biting: Elmstead was paid £14,100, with £5,555.94 moved into FHDC’s strategic CIL pot because it exceeded the parish cap.

The question ShepwayVox posed: “Will residents get input?”

This is where the public-interest argument begins. In April 2022, The Shepway Vox Team highlighted that seven councils had received about £130,000 of neighbourhood CIL and asked whether residents would be allowed input into how it would be spent, pointing readers back to the statutory expectation of transparency and the practical reality that “local” money can quietly become “held” money.

It was a fair question then, and—given the growth in neighbourhood CIL payments since—an even more pressing one now.

What the councils’ own publishing shows: spend, “pots”, and visibility

Looking across the councils that FHDC reports as having received neighbourhood CIL, a pattern emerges: where councils publish a dedicated CIL annual statement (as the regulations expect), the public can usually see whether the money has been spent, earmarked, or simply parked. Where councils do not make that statement easy to find, residents are left trying to reconstruct decisions from scattered minutes and budget lines.

Here is what is clearly evidenced from publicly available council documents located in this review.

Hythe Town Council publishes a CIL income-and-expenditure statement. In 2024/25 it reports receiving £39,162.64 from FHDC and spending £10,122.00 on a skatepark quarterpipe and frame, with the remainder carried forward.

Folkestone Town Council also publishes a CIL income-and-expenditure statement. In 2024/25 it shows receipt of £16,227.07 and CIL expenditure including £4,444 for play-area fencing supply (Pine Way Play Area), again leaving a carried-forward balance. 

New Romney Town Council publishes a CIL annual infrastructure statement. Its statement to 31 March 2025 records CIL expenditure including £10,000 towards a 3G pitch contribution at Marsh Academy, plus items such as a community notice board and planters, while also showing retained balances. 

Dymchurch Parish Council publishes an annual infrastructure funding statement and is explicit that, for the year ending 31 March 2025, the CIL received (£3,543.02) was placed in reserve pending a spending decision, with no expenditure in-year.

Brookland Parish Council maintains a dedicated page linking its annual CIL reports (March 2023, March 2024, March 2025), making it straightforward for residents to locate the required annual returns. 

Stelling Minnis Parish Council likewise provides a dedicated CIL page and references its parish annual infrastructure funding statement, again making the statutory reporting trail visible. 

Sandgate Parish Council publishes an annual CIL report page for 2024/25, stating that it is required to report receipts and expenditure annually and embedding the relevant year’s report for public view. 

For several other councils named in FHDC’s payment tables, this review could verify at least some discussion of neighbourhood CIL in public minutes, but could not always confirm a standalone annual CIL statement in the material accessed here—sometimes because the relevant council web pages returned access errors during checking. A good example of why that matters is Brenzett Parish Council: minutes show the council noting a CIL receipt and instructing the clerk to contact FHDC to clarify the timescale for spending and “acceptable areas of expenditure”. That is legitimate governance—but it also underlines why the annual published CIL report is not “red tape”: it is the one place residents should be able to see, year by year, whether the money is being held, earmarked, or spent.

One eyebrow-raising governance note appears in Saltwood Parish Council minutes, which record the repayment of £28,945 described as “CIL monies paid in error” to FHDC. FHDC’s own IFS tables show Saltwood receiving neighbourhood CIL in earlier years, but the presence of a repayment entry in local minutes illustrates how easily the story becomes opaque unless the annual reporting is consistently accessible.

The “pot” question: how do residents shape decisions?

The uncomfortable truth is that neighbourhood CIL is designed to be local and flexible, which means public involvement is a matter of council practice, not automatic mechanism. The law requires publication of receipts and spend (so residents can scrutinise), but it does not force a referendum on projects.

In practice, councils that publish clear annual CIL statements make it far easier for residents to influence decisions early—because residents can see whether money is building up, and can challenge the council to move from “reserve” to “project”. Dymchurch’s plain-language disclosure that the money was put into reserve “pending spending decision” is an example of transparency that enables that conversation.

Conversely, where reporting is fragmented, public input tends to be reactive: residents only discover “what happened” after a decision is effectively baked in, or after balances have sat untouched for years.

The bigger issue: neighbourhood CIL is growing—so the accountability gap matters more

FHDC’s reporting shows neighbourhood CIL payments surged sharply from £57,853.80 in 2021/22 to £218,691.74 in 2022/23, then remained above £190,000 per year in 2023/24 and 2024/25.

That is no longer “small change”. It is real capital, capable of funding play areas, public realm improvements, local traffic measures, community facilities, and more—exactly the kind of visible mitigation residents expect when development accelerates.

And FHDC’s own documents also show the direction of travel: in at least one case, Lyminge received forward funding for a play park, with £14,175 to be recovered from future CIL income due. That is, in effect, a recognition that infrastructure expectations do not wait politely for instalments and accounting years to pass.

What residents should reasonably expect next

If neighbourhood CIL is to retain legitimacy, residents should be able to answer three questions without needing specialist knowledge or detective work:

First, how much did our council receive this year, and how much is still sitting unspent?

Second, what was it spent on (if anything), and how does that project relate to local development impacts?

Third, how will the next spending decisions be made—and where can residents put forward priorities before the money becomes quietly absorbed into a generic “reserve”?

The law already provides the backbone: neighbourhood CIL must be used to support development pressures, councils must publish annual reporting, and there are backstop repayment powers if funds are mishandled. The missing piece, in too many places, is the cultural norm that we The Shepway Vox Team was pressing for back in 2022: that “local money” should come with local visibility and an open, early conversation about local priorities. 

If you have a story we should be looking at, please do contact us at: TheShepwayVoxTeam@proton.me – Always Discreet, Always Confidential.

The Shepway Vox Team

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