Unilateral Undertakings

All proposals for new dwellings will require a Unilateral Undertaking to secure a RAMS payment.  Your proposal will also be assessed to see if a contribution towards Open Space and Play is also required.

The Unilateral Undertaking will be drafted at the same time as the planning application is being considered. Failure to complete the UU within the application determination period could result in the refusal of your application.

The Unilateral Undertaking process is detailed below:

Assessment of the application

Your proposal will be assessed by our Open Spaces team, to  determine if there is a need for open space and play equipment in that part of the district.  Consideration will also be given to the number of existing contributions pooled for a specific project in accordance with national guidelines.

Drafting the Unilateral Undertaking

Any application for one or more new dwelling(s) will require a Unilateral Undertaking.  The Council’s Legal Team can draft the Unilateral Undertaking for you.  To start the process we will write to you to ask for an up to date Land Registry title document and plan (not more than 4 weeks old) together with a non-refundable payment of £100 for the preparation of the agreement.  Our Legal Team can obtain copies of the up to date title documents on your behalf at an additional charge of £6 per title.  If the land is not registered you will be provided with a ‘Certificate of Title’ form which is required to be completed by a solicitor and returned to us.

Executing the Agreement

Once we have successfully drafted the agreement it will be sent to you to obtain the relevant signatories.  You should then send the agreement back to us and we will register the development as a charge on the local land charges register.

Commencing Development

Before you commence the development you should notify us so that we may calculate the correct contribution fee.  This contribution fee for Open Space and Play will be based on the amount of bedrooms created and for RAMS on the number of new dwellings.  The contributions will be index linked using the index from two months prior to the date of the agreement as the base index and the index from two months before the date of payment.  Once you the relevant contribution(s) have been received we will update the Local Land Charges register to confirm payment.