The Digital Planning Team at MHCLG
ALIGN is a new national infrastructure spatial tool bringing together data, models and AI to identify local infrastructure needs and constraints. Supporting both central and local government, it will help assess whether existing infrastructure can support housing and local growth, and where additional investment may be needed.
AI is helping planning teams cut through the time-consuming work of consultation analysis. A pilot has been extended with 5 more planning authorities, delivering efficiency gains and freeing officers to focus on judgement and engagement. But success depends on strong governance, good data structure and proper quality assurance.
11 consortiums of technology companies, local planning and combined authorities have been selected for Round 6 of the Digital Planning Programme’s PropTech Innovation Fund, to pilot digital solutions targeting blockers to housing delivery.
A new AI planning prototype, developed with Google DeepMind and Faculty, is being tested with three local planning authorities to help officers process applications faster. The tool analyses applications and surfaces relevant policies while planning officers remain the key decision makers. Our ambition is to halve processing times for householder applications.
Extract, a new AI-powered tool developed by MHCLG's Digital Planning Programme and i.AI, is now available for free, for every local planning authority in England. It converts planning documents into structured, usable data in minutes - cutting a process that can take officers up to two hours down to just two minutes on average.
Regulations have been laid in Parliament requiring local planning authorities to publish plan and timetable data in a standardised format, when creating local, minerals, waste or supplementary plans under the new plan-making system. This marks a major step towards a more open, data-driven planning system.
England's planning system holds decades of valuable data locked in scanned PDFs and digital documents. Extract, an AI tool developed by MHCLG in partnership with the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence, converts historic planning maps and documents into standardised, usable data - so local authorities can make their data available and power digital planning services.
New technology is transforming how planning is delivered. 3 of the 4 finalists in this year's Planning Awards' digital technology category are funded by the Digital Planning programme, demonstrating how AI tools and technology are saving time, improving consistency and helping deliver 1.5 million homes.
Local planning authorities are modernising planning services using open data. New software like PlanX is improving the experience for applicants, while back-office improvements are speeding up processing. New funding will help more authorities adopt tools and make improvements, freeing up planning teams to focus on delivering the homes communities need.
We’re exploring if AI can help support faster local plan preparation. An AI tool developed by Greater Cambridge Shared Planning and the University of Liverpool is now being stress-tested by 5 local authorities, to see if the initial results – accurate consultation summaries produced in a fraction of the time - can be replicated elsewhere.
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