Schools, clubs and parish councils asked for £4,368,111 from the district's developer levy. The council has allocated about £1m to local infrastructure.

Ninety-one community projects across the New Forest have asked the district council for a share of the money it takes from developers. Added up, they want £4,368,111.23.

New Forest District Council published the full list on 2 September. It is the clearest picture anyone has of what this district’s schools, sports clubs, churches, scout groups and parish councils actually want built, and it is worth reading in full.

The money is the Community Infrastructure Levy, a charge on new floorspace. The council’s most recent Infrastructure Funding Statement shows how much of it is going where, and the answer sets the odds for these 91 bids.

The arithmetic

The council took £3,808,993 in CIL during 2025/26. Of that, £534,347 went straight to town and parish councils to spend themselves. The rest was allocated across four headings:

  • CIL Local Infrastructure: £1,018,365
  • CIL Strategic Projects: £4,500,000
  • Recreational Habitat Mitigation: £1,720,000
  • CIL Cultural Development: £150,000
What 91 New Forest community projects asked for, against the CIL the council has allocated A bar chart. The 91 bids received in the 2026 window total 4,368,111 pounds. The council's Infrastructure Funding Statement for 2025/26 allocates CIL as follows: 4,500,000 pounds to strategic projects, 1,720,000 pounds to recreational habitat mitigation, 1,018,365 pounds to local infrastructure, which is the heading these bids compete under, and 150,000 pounds to cultural development. The bids ask for roughly four times the local infrastructure allocation. 91 bids want £4.4m. The pot they are bidding into is about £1m. Community Infrastructure Levy, New Forest district. Bids from the 2026 window; allocations from the 2025/26 Infrastructure Funding Statement. ASKED FOR 91 bids received £4,368,111 ALLOCATED, 2025/26 Strategic projects £4,500,000 Habitat mitigation £1,720,000 Local infrastructure £1,018,365 Cultural development £150,000 Local infrastructure is the heading these 91 bids compete under. They ask for about four times it. The council also passed £534,347 straight to town and parish councils, and approved 25 new local infrastructure projects, during 2025/26. Total CIL received that year: £3,808,993. Source: New Forest District Council, CIL Bids received August 2026, and Infrastructure Funding Statement 2025/26. Checked 4 September 2026. Graphic by New Forest Daily
The 91 bids ask for roughly four times what the council has allocated to local infrastructure. Graphic by New Forest Daily.

Local infrastructure is the heading these bids compete under. So 91 projects are asking for about four times what the council has put in that pot. In 2025/26 the council approved 25 new local infrastructure projects.

Officers say the bids are being validated and screened now, and will be discussed with members in October 2026.

What people asked for

The median bid is £40,000. Fifteen are under £10,000. Seventeen ask for exactly £100,000, and none asks for more, which looks like a ceiling, though we could not find a stated per-bid maximum in the council’s published CIL material.

The smallest bid on the list is £1,005, from Martin Parish Council, for traffic calming in the village.

Some recurring themes:

  • Sport and play. Fawley Sports CIC wants £100,000 for changing facilities and a clubhouse. Ringwood School wants £100,000 for changing rooms at the school and The Barn. Lyndhurst Parish Council wants £100,000 for a pump track and jumps at Coles Mead Recreation Ground. Boldre Parish Council wants £100,000 to redevelop its community sports pavilion. Fawley Parish Council wants £100,000 for a covered padel court at Gang Warily.
  • Energy. Eleven bids, worth £463,058 between them, are for solar panels, batteries or getting off gas. Paultons Cricket Club wants to cover its pavilion roof in solar. Ellingham and Ringwood Rugby Football Club calls its bid “Get Off Gas”. Hyde Brass Band wants panels on its rehearsal building.
  • Schools. Calmore Junior School wants an outdoor classroom and an all weather daily mile track. Lymington County Junior School wants £85,680 for boundary security across the junior, infant and Little Dolphins sites. The Arnewood School in New Milton and The Burgate School in Fordingbridge both want £100,000, for a community kitchen and a sports pavilion.
  • Toilets, roofs and drains. Hulse Hall at Breamore wants £13,925 for a sewage treatment system. Boldre Parish Council wants £11,000 for a waterless compost toilet. The New Forest Agricultural Show Society wants £100,000 for toilets and facilities.

New Milton Town Council put in seven separate bids, more than any other body, covering footpaths at Barton Common north and south, outdoor fitness equipment in two locations, biodiversity planting and information boards at Ballard Nature Reserve.

What it means for you

If your school, club or parish is on this list, the decision point is October 2026, when officers take the validated bids to members. Nothing is awarded yet.

If it is not on the list, the window has closed. The council describes it as a bidding window that ran between June and August, so the next one will be advertised by the council rather than by us.

The wider point is about where community money in this district now comes from. From 1 April 2027 the council is closing both of its own grant schemes, the £85,000 revenue grant programme and the £100,000 capital community grant programme, and giving individual councillors a larger ward budget instead. Developer money is becoming a bigger share of what is left, and it is heavily oversubscribed.

Fifteen of these 91 bids ask for less than £10,000. For a village hall or a scout hut, that is the difference between a working roof and a closed building.

A note on the dates

The council’s page is headed “CIL Bids received August 2026” and says the bids will go to members in October 2026. The sentence in between says the bidding window ran “between June and August 2025”. The two do not fit together, and on the balance of the rest of the page the 2025 appears to be an error for 2026. We have reported the page as it stands rather than silently tidying it, and will correct this if the council says otherwise.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Community Infrastructure Levy?

It is a charge New Forest District Council makes on new floorspace, such as new homes and house extensions, calculated by area. The council splits the money three ways: strategic spending, a share passed straight to town and parish councils, and 5% for administration. The parish share is 15% capped at £100 per dwelling, or 25% uncapped where a neighbourhood development plan is in place.

How many bids were received, and for how much?

Ninety-one bids, totalling £4,368,111.23. The council published the full list on 2 September 2026.

How much money is there to give out?

The council’s Infrastructure Funding Statement for 2025/26 allocates £1,018,365 to CIL Local Infrastructure, which is the heading these bids compete under. It also allocates £4.5m to strategic projects, £1.72m to recreational habitat mitigation and £150,000 to cultural development. So the bids ask for roughly four times the local infrastructure allocation.

When will the council decide?

Officers are validating and screening the bids now, and say they will be discussed with members in October 2026. Nothing has been awarded.

What was the largest bid, and the smallest?

Seventeen bids ask for exactly £100,000, and none asks for more. The smallest is £1,005, from Martin Parish Council, for traffic calming in Martin. The median bid is £40,000.

Who submitted the most bids?

New Milton Town Council, with seven. Milford-on-Sea Parish Council and Lymington and Pennington Town Council submitted three each.

Sources

  • New Forest District Council, CIL Bids received August 2026, published 2 September 2026, for the full list of 91 bids, each organisation, project summary and amount, and for the October 2026 review date. The total of £4,368,111.23, the median of £40,000, the count of 17 bids at £100,000, the 15 bids under £10,000 and the energy subtotal of £463,058 are our own arithmetic on that published table.
  • New Forest District Council, Infrastructure Funding Statement 2025/26 for CIL receipts of £3,808,993, the £534,347 passed to town and parish councils, the allocations of £1,018,365 to local infrastructure, £4,500,000 to strategic projects, £1,720,000 to recreational habitat mitigation and £150,000 to cultural development, and for the 25 local infrastructure projects approved in 2025/26.
  • New Forest District Council, monitoring of CIL money for the split between strategic spending, the parish share and 5% administration, and for the 15% or 25% parish percentages.