MLA is committed to helping planners, developers and cultural professionals plan appropriate cultural infrastructure as part of regeneration and new development. To achieve this we have developed the Culture and Sport Planning Toolkit with our partners in Living Places.
Integral to the Toolkit are Public libraries, archives and new development: a standard charge approach and Arts, museums and new development: a standard charge approach. These set out an approach for calculating and securing developer contributions as part of Section 106 agreements and for future application under the Community Infrastructure Levy. The financial charge for the developers is based on a national benchmark charge for each person expected in a new housing development. The charges are based upon average cost and space benchmarks for library, archive and museum provision, supported by extensive survey work.
To take into account evidenced regional variations in costs, the libraries and archives standard charges also provide regionally adjusted cost figures.
Both approaches explain that local planning authorities are advised to carry out local and more detailed work to assess and establish local needs. This may lead to different levels of charges being adopted to suit local infrastructure requirements, and is particularly the case for museums where variation in provision between different kinds of local authorities can be significant.
There are also Arts, Museums and New Development standard charge overview sheets for:
MLA’s Field Team are able to advise on use of standard charges and the Culture and Sport Planning Toolkit