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The Digital Planning team

The Digital Planning Team at MHCLG

Putting innovation at the heart of unlocking small sites

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A title card that says 'PropTech innovation challenge: opportunities to accelerate housing delivery. Apply now.'

The Deputy Prime Minister has unveiled a package of measures to empower SME housebuilders to build out smaller sites faster. The Digital Planning programme’s £1.2 million PropTech Innovation Challenge is one of the initiatives included – designed to accelerate housing delivery across England by inviting tech innovators to partner with local authorities and developers to create cutting-edge solutions for small site development.

Unlocking planning innovation: 150 brilliant minds collaborate in Leeds 

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Teams collaborating at the hackathon

Innovation was sparked at the Local Government Innovation Hackathon, where 150 planners, technologists and digital leaders collaborated to solve real planning challenges. MHCLG proudly co-organised the event with Government Digital Service, Incubator for AI and Open Digital Planning, reimagining planning services through this hands-on approach.

Funding boost to support digital planning innovation

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Workshop image

The MHCLG Digital Planning programme is providing further grant funding to local planning authorities (LPAs), for specific digital, data and innovation work, to modernise their planning services.  In this blog post, we set out the allocation of funding for a range of improvements and projects which will transform planning processes and deliver efficiencies.

Setting the foundations for faster plan-making 

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Aerial view of green space with businesses and housing

A new home for plan-making resources, called 'Create or update a local plan', has been published on GOV.UK, bringing together all the essential guidance and tools councils need to produce a local plan. Responding to feedback by providing clearer, consistent guidance, including new standards to create policy maps, our aim is to make the process faster and more efficient.

Digital Planning Directory launches: a milestone moment for the UK’s planning sector  

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Dr-Wei-Yang-OBE-CEO-Digital-Task-Forcce-for-Planning

Digital transformation has taken a major step forward with the launch of the Digital Planning Directory - a comprehensive platform bringing together state-of-the-art planning tools and services in one accessible location. The Directory, developed to address the pressing need for digital skills and resources in local planning authorities, will help both public and private sector professionals make informed decisions about digital planning solutions.

Digital Planning Programme: our year in review 

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Nottingham City Council's 3D map of Nottingham city centre which is delivering tangible planning benefits to the council.

In this blog the Digital Planning team review the programme’s highlights from 2024. From increased data collection to developing new tools, collaboration to innovation, the team has worked alongside Local Planning Authorities, the planning community and other colleagues in government to make planning faster, data-driven, and more citizen-friendly.

Digital Planning: applying digital principles and innovation to transform England’s planning system 

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a building site

The Digital Planning programme in MHCLG is transforming the future of planning. Find out how standardised data, innovation, collaboration and enhanced use of digital tools are reshaping England's planning system to make it more efficient and inclusive.

Exploring the use of artificial intelligence to streamline the planning process

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a residential area seen from above

Planning documents often contain vast amounts of valuable information, but accessing and using this data can be challenging. Artificial intelligence offers a potentially promising solution to extract key information and insights, and this post talks about how the Digital Planning Programme is exploring the use of artificial intelligence to streamline the planning process.

PropTech Innovation Fund: how it's helped identify barriers to adoption of digital engagement tools and the role of government and partners to reduce them

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Digital Planning, Innovation, PropTech
A group of people sitting around a table and discussing something

Through Rounds 1-3 of the PropTech Innovation Fund, we have funded 65 pilots involving 47 different LPAs. This blog post outlines the top five barriers identified through our pilots and research. If these are addressed, we believe they will help enable the adoption of digital engagement tools at scale. 

DLUHC announces allocation of funding for council-led initiatives advancing innovative digital planning services

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a title card that says 'funding awarded to council-led initiatives advancing innovative digital planning services'

The DLUHC Digital Planning Programme is supporting further Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) through the latest funding round for digital services to improve planning.  In this blog post, we announce allocation of funding for council-led initiatives advancing innovative digital planning services.