Critics say the council is “marking its own homework” by relying solely on its own discretionary review, while allowing residents to continue suffering under threats of home seizures and imprisonment.
At a full council meeting on Tuesday, residents and councillors raised serious concerns about the council’s approach to enforcing CIL payments, which has left some facing six-figure penalties.
The Conservative Opposition at Waverley raised a motion for an independent review in the handling of CIL, which was discussed at the meeting.
Resident Steve Dally, of Godalming, faced a £70k penalty after making a minor change to a planning application for a home extension. Although he has since been told he will be refunded by Waverley, he spoke about the torment CIL victims have faced.
“Last week the Post Office scandal reported 13 suicides had been caused by the way innocent people had been treated. Do any of you know what it’s like to receive a CIL demand notice from Waverley? Being threatened with home seizure and imprisonment?
“Feeling overwhelmed by worry and fear, finding it difficult to cope with everyday tasks and responsibilities, sleepless nights, heart palpitations, sweat, and trembling? I’ve experienced them all and more.
“It’s reported that one person in Waverley suffered a nervous breakdown, which is important. One person has been forced to sell their home. One family is currently selling their home because they can’t afford to pay.
“I call upon you all to take a stand and stop this poor behaviour, and show more respect and kindness to residents who are innocent of any crime, who at most have fallen foul of poorly written legislation through genuine unintended error.
“Will all of you take a stand and immediate action to correct this disgraceful practice and cease threatening homeowners with home seizure and imprisonment – which Waverley considers good practice?
“A lack of action will show you support poor behaviour.”
The council discussed whether to postpone an independent review into the CIL issue. It is currently conducting its own discretionary review, but Cllr Jane Austin, Waverley’s Conservative Opposition leader, said this did not go far enough.
“CIL was created to serve communities but there is a growing sense that Waverley’s application of CIL processes is unfair, opaque, and overly punitive,” she said, adding that she feels “mortification and shame” about residents’ treatment.
“We’re told our council is simply following the law, but if that was the case, why are these significant clusters of cases only appearing here in Waverley and in West Berkshire? That points to something particular in the way we are enforcing and administering CIL.
“We need to investigate whether we contributed to issues by failing to provide clear signposting, support to residents navigating what is a highly complex and technical process.
“Waverley must answer the charges put to it, that it coerced, entrapped, or strong-armed residents into these huge payments by any action that it may have taken, or failed to take.
“In seeing our residents in deep distress, did our council listen, did it provide support? Did Waverley set householders up to fail? The evidence from victims points to Waverley enforcing those failures with the full weight of the law.
“The conclusion many have reached is that CIL was and is an exercise in revenue collection.”
Cllr Jerry Hyman (Farnham Residents, Farnham Firgrove) said Waverley should “simply say we got it wrong”.
“We know we’re guilty – why not admit it, and why not settle up with people? Why waste time?” he asked.
Cllr Michael Goodridge MBE (Conservative, Bramley and Wonersh) said Waverley was “marking its own homework” with its own discretionary review.
“Potentially, this is a smaller scale, Post Office-type scandal,” he said. “And the sooner we can get a report to say either the council performed incredibly well or didn’t, the better.
“What we’re effectively being asked to do is to push this into the long grass in the hope we can sort out the problem internally without having to be transparent about what the council is doing.”
Cllr Daniel Husseini (Conservative, Godalming and Binscombe) said: “Frankly, I’m shocked we’re considering kicking the can down the road another six months. These people are desperate and it’s just incomprehensible to me that we’re going to delay this even further.”
Cllr Carole Cockburn (Conservative, Farnham Bourne) gave an emotional plea: “These people are suffering now. We can’t say to these people ‘I’m terribly sorry, you’ve sold your house, we’ll give you another six months and we’ll come up with something else.’
“We are having a terrible impact. These people are in pieces. I am not an actress, I am so upset by the stories that I’ve heard.
“What are we here for? I did not sign up to make life difficult for any of our residents, and that’s what I’m doing at the moment as a member of this council.”
But Cllr Liz Townsend (Lib-Dems, Cranleigh West) said an independent review would put extra pressure on already overworked officers.
She also condemned some councillors for politicising the issue.
In an impassioned speech, she said: “People here are putting fear into people and are deliberately misrepresenting it. And I can only think some of it is for political gain.
“We cannot put more pressure on officers, what we want to deliver is the very best outcome we can, in that we take away that liability notice and we refund them their money.
“Our officers want to make it right so people don’t suffer distress. But they are suffering distress – the barbs that have been thrown at them about entrapping people, we have to recognise these officers want to make this work.”
Waverley leader Cllr Paul Follows also defended the discretionary review process.
“We should try and establish a position based on evidence, particularly how we establish a proportionate response to an issue.
“The other supplementary issue is that we have a finite number of officers in this authority. We need to be clear that those residents who do feel they are impacted, and have concerns about CIL, can go through that discretionary review.
“While we have an independent person conducting this review, there will be quite a lot of officers making sure the files are prepared, the details, all of these issues that officers have in this authority.
“I would say to all of you, we all understand the importance of making sure this discretionary review works. I don’t want to take officers off the line of that review.
“This is premature, and we should be a council that is based on evidence and let the officers do the job which we’ve all agreed they should do, which is conduct this discretionary review and put our emphasis and focus on that.”
A motion to postpone an independent review for six months until January 2026 to allow Waverley’s discretionary review to proceed was passed, with councillors voting 23 for and 14 against.
A spokesperson for Waverley Borough Council said from July 17, homeowners can submit a request for a discretionary review if they believe they were incorrectly charged CIL due to a council error on a residential extension, annexe, or self-build since the the levy was introduced on March 1, 2019.
All review requests will be “independently examined by a professionally qualified reviewer, ensuring each case is assessed transparently and on its own merits”.
The new Discretionary Review process is being introduced following formal approval by the council's Executive Committee on July 1, 2025.
“It is designed to offer residents an opportunity to have historic CIL charges reviewed if they believe the council has made an error. This step reflects the council's commitment to making the CIL system clearer, fairer, and more responsive to the circumstances of individual householders,” the spokesperson said.
For more information visit: www.waverley.gov.uk/cildiscretionaryreview
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