Central Bedfordshire Council has been accused of incompetence after potentially missing out on £3.3million through its failure to implement a plan on how it would charge property developers.

For the past six months councillor Adam Zerny – who represents the Potton ward – has been asking the unitary authority how much it could have gained had it approved a Community Infrastructure Levy charging schedule since mooting the idea last summer.

The CIL was introduced by the government in 2010 to allow local authorities to levy a fee from developers when new housing developments are built.

Mr Zerny says the unitary authority has missed out on the potential sum from developments in Sandy, Stotfold and Caddington.

“To fail to approve a plan quickly is careless, but to allow it to drag on so long that the public purse misses out on more than £3m strikes me as utter incompetence,” he said.

The unitary authority issued a bullish response to the claims, saying that the potential income is ‘hypothetical’, and pointing out that plenty of money had been drawn in via S106 agreements.

Andrew Davie, who is development infrastructure group manager at the unitary authority, said: “The £3.3m that is referenced as being the potential CIL charge that three developments might have attracted, had the Central Bedfordshire CIL been approved, is based on heavily estimated calculations.

“What is certain, however, is that we have secured in excess of £8m through S106 agreements – a different type of developer contribution – for the Stotfold and Caddington sites.

“There has been no decision yet on the Sandy application.”