The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is backing 11 digital innovations designed to accelerate cross-boundary and cross-tier plan-making, and reduce delays caused by Section 106 negotiations.
According to the MHCLG, cross-boundary and cross-tier plan-making – where neighbouring areas coordinate planning for housing, infrastructure and growth – remains slow and fragmented. Meanwhile, Section 106 agreements, the legal agreements that secure contributions from developers towards local infrastructure and affordable housing, can take months to negotiate, adding further delays to new homes being built.
The MHCLG has selected 11 consortia of technology companies and local planning or combined authorities to pilot and scale digital solutions to directly target these bottlenecks. Each receives a share of a £2.4m grant from the PropTech Innovation Fund and dedicated mentoring and support during the eight-month programme.
Among those selected to tackle cross-boundary and cross-tier plan-making are:
- AiDASH - AI-powered biodiversity assessments for strategic housing and economic land availability assessments. Lancaster City Council is the main partner, with Newark and Sherwood District Council involved as a testing partner.
- Blocktype – AI-powered platform for collaborative, design-led housing capacity assessments across multiple sites, scales and locations. Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and University of Liverpool are the main partners. The testing partner is West Midlands Combined Authority.
- Esri (UK) - a shared, customisable digital evidence hub for spatial plans . The main partners are Oxfordshire County Council and Landclan. The testing partners are Nottingham City Council, Spelthorne Borough Council and Surrey County Council.
A trio of consortia – led by AI Gizmo, Gpeto AI and PlanningHub respectively – were selected to accelerate Section 106 negotiations.
The 11 consortia will showcase the results of their work early next year.
A week ago, the MHCLG made Extract – the AI-enabled digital planning tool that can extract structured data from poor scans, pdfs and paper documents – available to all local planning authorities.
