County chiefs have failed to explain exactly why its pot of unspent developer contributions has steadily increased to £62million.

The money is meant to be used to bolster public services such as schools and GPs in areas where new housing is being built.

An investigation by Punchline-Gloucester.com has found that the amount of infrastructure payments being stored in county council coffers has risen from £25.9million in 2019/20 to £62m in 2022/23. That is an increase of £36m in three years.

And the six district councils were also holding at least £22.3m in unspent planning obligations at the end of the 2022/23 financial year - bringing the total sat in council bank accounts to £84m.

Gloucestershire County Council boss Cllr David Gray attributed its rising pot of funds to the fact the county is one of the "fastest growing in the country". The cabinet member for environment, economy and planning said this "triggered" more S106 contributions.

But with a five year deadline to spend each payment, it has failed to reveal whether all the money is being used in a timely manner and how much of the pot has had to be returned to developers.

The money is collected in two ways, with the amounts agreed on by council officers and developers as part of the planning process.

The first is through the long-standing Section 106 process which allocates funds to specific projects.

The other is the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) which was introduced by the Government and adopted by Gloucestershire in 2019.

This money can be spent on projects of the council's choosing relating to schools, transport, culture, green spaces and leisure facilities.

News first broke in November that local authorities in England and Wales were sitting on more than £8billion of planning obligation money. The figure included more than £6b from Section 106 agreements and almost £2b of CIL payments.

Research by the House Builders Federation (HBF) ranked Gloucestershire County Council as 16th in a list of the top 20 local authorities with unspent developer contributions.

It questioned why money earmarked for new schools, educational facilities and much-needed affordable housing is sitting unspent in council bank accounts.

The report said: "HBF estimates of the total amount of unspent Section 106 contributions has more than doubled since last year, suggesting there is a growing backlog of infrastructure projects that local authorities have not yet delivered - and around a quarter of the unspent contributions have been held for more than five years. Indeed, some councils admit to holding on to funds for more than 20 years, completely severing the link between the payment of the contributions and the mitigation of a development's impact."

Punchline-Gloucester.com combed through documents for our county to find figures for unspent planning obligations here.

Since September 2019 councils have been required by law to record the figures as an annual Infrastructure Funding Statement (IFS).

The Gloucestershire County Council statements show that the pot of unspent money totalled:

• £25,914,245 in 2019/20
• £37,087,412 in 2020/21
• £56,620,595 in 2021/22
• £62,035,443 in 2022/23
  

We asked the council if it thinks this is reasonable and how much unspent money it has had to return to developers since 2019.

Cllr Gray said: "Gloucestershire is one of the fastest growing counties in the country and this level of housing development triggers both the need for more infrastructure and, consequently, a higher level of Section 106 contributions from developers as they build the new housing.

"It's entirely appropriate that developers contribute toward the cost of new infrastructure that their developments necessitate, rather than that these costs fall on existing residents, although existing residents will benefit from many of the schemes part-funded from S106.

"Funds are only collected and spent once housing has been delivered and associated schemes planned, hence there is a delay between collections and spending, especially on large schemes such as new schools."

We also asked when the 2023/24 IFS statement would be released and if the amount of unspent money had increased again. The council did not provide a response to these questions.

It said recent examples of the use of Section 106 funds include:

• Berkeley Primary School - committed to spend allocation of £224,586 in 2024/25 onwards
• Churchdown Library - committed to spend allocation of £109,346.96 in 24/25 onwards
• Prestbury St Mary's Infant School expansion - spent allocation of £210,000 in 2023/24

Each of Gloucestershire's six district authorities also collect planning obligations and publish a separate annual IFS.

Gloucester City Council published its 2023/24 report last week which showed the amount of unspent money it retained was £4,672,324.47.

It's pot of infrastructure funds has also increased steadily growing from:

£1,724,283.73 in 2019/20

£1,323,444.75 in 2020/21

£1,636,526.84 in 2021/22

£3,520,251.99 in 2022/23

Cheltenham Borough Council is due to dicusss its IFS 2023/24 at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday (Dec 17). It shows unspent money for the last financial year 2023/24 stands at £3,990,470.59 and has also increased from:

• £2,276,621.47 in 2019/20
• £1,505,455.30 in 2020/21
• £1,258,569.74 in 2021/22
• £2,407,749.52 in 2022/23

Other council figures are reported in different ways with not all of them providing a total for unspent planning obligations retained.

Stroud District Council

• £884,337 in 2019/20
• £867,347 in 202/21
• £1,266,007 in 2021/22
• £670,175 in 22/23

Cotswolds District Council

• £560,793.00 of S106 held which was not allocated to infrastructure projects and it retained £15,803.65 of CIL receipts in 2019/20
• £601,931.97 of S106 held which was not allocated and it retained £200,361.16 of CIL receipts in 2020/21
• £615,775.64 of S106 held which was not allocated and it retained £750,536.25 of CIL receipts in 2021/22
• £1,763,377.89 of S106 held which was not allocated in 2022/23

Forest Of Dean District Council has reported the S106 money retained was:

• £3,797,857.69 in 22/23
• £170,078.00 in 2021/22
• £2,656,921.31 in 2020/21
• £2,805,229.97 in 2019/20

Tewkesbury Borough Council

£10,226,958.65 in 2022/23

No previous reports could be found online