A planning obligation is a legal agreement whereby a developer will mitigate or compensate for the negative of the new development. They are there to enable development to happen, but also to ensure that any harm that results from it, is removed or reduced to an acceptable level. In particular they enable the provision for the infrastructure needed to support development such as roads, schools, public transport, open space or affordable housing. They are set and agreed before work on the development starts, through Section 106 agreements. They can restrict how land is developed or used. They are appropriate after tests are successfully proven:

•  They have to be directly related to the development (money spent on or near the development)
•  The scale of the Planning Obligation needs to be appropriate to the proposed development
•  They should be necessary to bring the development in line with the Council’s policies (Local Plan)
•  They could not cover issues which are not dealt with through the planning process
•  They have to be reasonable.