Harlow Council held £1,164,801 of developer money on 31 March and spent £55,887 all year. The largest pot, £557,903, waits on an Old Harlow surgery extension.
Harlow Council was holding £1,164,801 of developers’ money on 31 March, and spent or passed on £55,887 of it across the whole year.
The figures are in the Annual Section 106 Monitoring Report, which goes to Cabinet on Monday 14 September. Section 106 money is what a developer agrees to pay to offset the pressure a new scheme puts on local services. Councils must publish an Infrastructure Funding Statement saying what they hold, what they collected and what they spent.
The single largest sum Harlow is sitting on is £557,903.37 from the Gilden Way development, allocated to extending Old Harlow Health Centre. The report says “discussions are ongoing between the council, General Practitioner and Integrated Care Board on the delivery of this”.
Where the £1.16m is allocated
Excluding maintenance and monitoring fees, the money is earmarked like this:
- £557,903.37 for health, from Gilden Way, for the Old Harlow Health Centre extension
- £178,936.80 for improved sports and community facilities at or close to Church Langley
- £162,623.30 for health, from Pearson House, to improve capacity at Nuffield House Surgery
- £121,753.65 for play areas and playing fields, from the Rugby Club development, with the play element allocated to a Multi Use Games Area at Northbrooks
- £70,117.02 for public art, secured from the UK Health Security Agency agreement, with the Harlow Arts Trust
- £59,187.91 for cycle improvements near The Stow, not yet allocated to a project
- £7,552.74 for further improvements to Harlow Roman Temple
- £3,981.28 for biodiversity net gain, to enhance a meadow in the Stort Valley
A further £311,453.16 is held separately as a commuted sum for maintaining the Church Langley estate, including £174,766.31 in a Church Langley Infrastructure Fund and smaller pots tied to individual streets: Abbeydale Close, Albert Gardens, Bentley Drive, Hadley Grange, Malkin Drive and Wedgewood Drive.
What was actually spent
The £55,887 spent, allocated or transferred in 2025/26 covers four things:
- £10,362 on step repairs, a road boundary fence and gate replacement at Harlow Roman Temple, from the Vintner House agreement
- £15,525 transferred to the Harlow Arts Trust for public art at Vintner House. The work, “Together In Hands”, was unveiled on 15 July 2026
- £30,000 transferred to the Arts Trust towards public art at UKHSA
- allotment money from the Rugby Club development, spent on vegetation clearance and waste removal
Affordable housing money from the Churchgate Hotel development, transferred the year before, went to the Parnall Road housing scheme, which the report says is now complete.
The council collected £217,333 during the year, from two agreements: £158,333 of healthcare money from Pearson House for Nuffield House Surgery, and £59,000 of cycle improvement money from the Stow Service Bays scheme.
Only one application in the year brought new money
The report records a striking fact about the state of development in Harlow. “There has been only one planning application approved in the reporting year that secured S106 contributions.” It was 4 Wych Elm, which secured contributions towards affordable housing (subject to an Early Stage Review), the East of England Ambulance Service, libraries, early years, the Sustainable Transport Corridor and healthcare.
Across all agreements, £219,147.84 was secured during the year for off-site projects in Harlow, including the Sustainable Transport Corridor, libraries, healthcare and education.
None of this counts what Essex County Council collects and spends in Harlow on schools and roads. The borough’s statement only covers money Harlow collects as the local planning authority.
The money can go back
Most Section 106 agreements set a deadline. The report is explicit about what happens if it is missed:
if the council or infrastructure provider does not deliver, begin building or allocate funds to a project within a particular timeframe (as stipulated in the S106) then that contribution may be lost. This is usually a time limit of five years from when the payment was first received.
Officers flag two pots for “particular consideration”. The Church Langley sports money, £178,936.80 collected from two developments, has no deadline in the Purford Green School agreement and the developer has not asked for it back. The £59,187.91 of Stow cycle money has no time limit either, but no project has been identified for it.
The report says S106 money is monitored quarterly, and that officers have cleared some long-standing backlogs, naming the public art and the Roman Temple site where money “had been unspent for a number if years”.
What it means for you
- Money is allocated, not spent. The two biggest health pots, £557,903 for Old Harlow Health Centre and £162,623 for Nuffield House Surgery, are both still at the discussion stage with the NHS.
- Northbrooks is getting a Multi Use Games Area, funded from the Rugby Club development’s play money. The council says it worked with Sport England to find a deliverable scheme.
- If you live near The Stow and cycle, £59,187.91 is sitting there with no project attached. Officers say they still need to identify one.
- Church Langley residents pay into their own pot. The commuted sum for the estate is held street by street, so you can see what is left for yours.
- Cabinet is only being asked to publish the statement, not to decide how any of the money is spent. The meeting is at 7pm on Monday in the Council Chamber at the Civic Centre, and is webcast live.
We follow Harlow’s planning decisions and the money attached to them on our Harlow planning news page.
Sources
- Harlow Council, Annual Section 106 Monitoring Report, Cabinet, 14 September 2026 for every figure above, the allocations, the spend, the single approved application, the five year rule and the two pots flagged for consideration.
- Harlow Council, Infrastructure Funding Statement 2026 for the summary totals for 2025/26.
- Harlow Council, Cabinet agenda, Monday 14 September 2026 for the meeting date, time and venue.
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