Published Thursday, 20th November 2025

Eleven projects have been awarded a share of £500,000 in Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) developer contributions for improvements to vital local facilities and services.

Successful projects to receive funding include a local refuge, Merstham Football Club, Salfords Village Hall, Horley Health Hub, local Scout groups, Innes Sports Pavilion in Horley and Redhill Brook flood alleviation and environmental education works.

CIL is a charge placed on developers to ensure that new developments contribute towards the essential infrastructure and services needed to support them, collected by Reigate & Banstead Borough Council. The majority of CIL money is pooled together to spend on larger, more costly projects across the borough, such as these, in a pot known as the Strategic Fund.

Delivering positive change for communities

Councillor Kate Fairhurst, Executive Member for Place, Planning and Regulatory Services, says: “It’s essential that funds collected from new developments are spent on important projects like these to support that development and deliver positive change for our communities.

“This funding is a significant amount of money that will make a real difference in delivering improvements to facilities and services that will have a significant benefit for the local communities they serve.”

In response to Horley Health Hub’s successful funding bid securing £25,377, Katherine Saunders, CEO of Alliance for Better Care CIC, said: “We are extremely grateful to have received this CIL funding. This news was warmly welcomed by our hub volunteers and the many members who use the hub regularly. The funding will allow us to make the hub even safer and more accessible for the community, ensuring that it continues to be a welcoming space for everyone.”

Horley Pathfinders Scout Group secured £31,000 for improvements to two venues. John Williamson, Trustee commented: “We are really pleased to be given this money from the CIL fund, which will help us to continue to maintain our buildings and means we are able to provide scouting experiences to Beavers, Cubs and Scouts both now and into the future. We have over 100 young people regularly attending so this is a real bonus for us and the local community.”

These funding awards follow an annual review and update of the Council’s Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Strategic Infrastructure Programme (SIP) by the Executive in June. The review saw the approval of £500,000 additional CIL funds for urgent infrastructure projects to support the borough’s development and its communities by 2027, along with multiple funding allocations for other projects. 

Bidding for a share of the funding was open between 30 June and 30 July 2025.

Many worthwhile bids

Cllr Fairhurst added: “As anticipated, the bidding for these funds was extremely competitive and was vastly oversubscribed. We received 36 bid requests for a wide range of worthwhile projects totalling in excess of £5 million for the half a million pounds of funding that was available. We are hopeful that additional funding will be available next year for further community infrastructure projects, potentially including some of those that missed out this year.”

The successful projects to receive this strategic CIL funding are listed on the Council’s website and will be reported in the SIP Review and Update report to Executive in June 2026, and in the annual Infrastructure Funding Statement for the 2025 financial year (published in December 2026).  

More information