BASINGSTOKE and Deane Borough Council has more than £10 million of unspent "community money".

The authority has allocated roughly £6.5 million of the developers' contributions to infrastructure projects around the borough, with around £3.7 million sitting in council reserves unallocated.

The money is paid to the borough council in section 106 agreements, which are drawn up between the council and developers when planning permission is sought.

It can be used for social and community projects, such as affordable housing, roads, parks and youth services, and is designed to mitigate for the impacts of housing developments.

It comes as councillors urged the authority to do all it can to force developers to build the proper infrastructure to go along with new houses.

The figures, outlined in a council report on infrastructure in the borough, reveal that the authority has £10,324,000 in unspent section 106 money.

It comes as the council develops its transport strategy and puts a vision for land around junction 7 out for public consultation.

The report states that the borough council has been "successful in securing funding and infrastructure provision through s106 for a number of years".

"These are legal agreements containing individual planning obligations that detail what measures are necessary to mitigate the impact of development," the report states. "More specifically, they address the impact of a development and ensure the provision of infrastructure to meet the needs of new residents and others using that development.

"These typically range from play and sports facilities, open spaces and transport, along with the delivery of affordable housing.

"The agreements will generally include trigger points agreed with the service provider to ensure facilities are provided in a timely manner and to meet needs."

However, councillors have called on the borough to do more to ensure developers are building the infrastructure promised.

Among those were Cllr Onnalee Cubitt and Cllr Paul Harvey.

Cllr Cubitt said at a meeting of the economic, housing and planning committee last week: "The reason why our residents are very sceptical and are very often not supportive of development is because we promise that we will ensure that x, y and z will be provided in the strategic site development, and then what happens, they never get developed.

"The houses get put up but somebody somewhere doesn't deliver.

"Our residents see their quality of life being reduced and not improved which was the basis in which they accepted and acknowledged the plan that we were proposing form the get go.

"Are we really capable of forcing developers to deliver what they promised and only on that basis will our residents really trust us going forward."

Cllr Harvey added by asking officers: "What guarantee can we give our residents that the infrastructure will be delivered? We can't can we?"

Cllr Paul Miller, who also chairs the development control committee that decides on large and controversial planning applications, added that currently, infrastructure is only delivered on a site-by-site basis, and that "joined up" thinking with masterplans are the only way to solve the infrastructure problems.

Meanwhile, Cllr Chris Tomblin told the meeting: "We have got absolutely no control over anything unless we can come up with a way of protecting ourselves."

Councillors decided to review the infrastructure funding statement annually.