If approved by locals, the neighbourhood development plan will receive 25% of revenues from a levy on developers available to local authorities, known as the Community Infrastructure Levy.
Neighbourhoods where a development takes place but which lack a plan will receive 15%.
Speaking during a BBC Newsnight feature on affordable housing, Nick Boles told a planning organisation in Cumbria: “What we’ve decided is for those areas that have a neighbourhood plan and get it through the referendum a quarter of the revenues from the Community Infrastructure Levy will go to the neighbourhood to spend on what the hell you like.
“That money will come to you if you build new houses.”
The policy, which Boles claimed he wanted to call “Boles’ Bung”, means if a development took place in one parish council area, that parish council would receive 15% of the Community Infrastructure Levy receipts for that development.
However, if the neighbourhood had completed the development plan process– which includes a local referendum – they would receive an extra 10% of receipts as well.
The planning incentives are due to begin in spring 2013.
Shadow planning minister Roberta Blackman-Woods told the programme: “The government’s strategy to deliver more housing isn’t working anywhere so we want them to really look at how they put more delivery mechanisms into the system because absolutely every area needs more housing and more affordable housing.”
