Digitising planning: is the government on the right track?

Indeed, clause 79 (processing of planning data) of the Bill is to ensure that data is consistently processed. Clause 80 (provision of planning data) ensures planning authorities no longer receive data in inconsistent formats. “This will better enable plans to be delivered faster,” the DLUHC claims.

Clause 81 (certain planning data to be made publicly available) will ensure planning data is open, enabling users to freely reuse it.

The DLUHC envisions a pick-and-mix toolkit – a set of tools that can be used by different types of planning authorities, at different stages of the plan cycle, to make the process more efficient, more cost effective and more accessible.

The toolkit could comprise:

The DLUHC says: “By building a toolkit like this, it provides the foundation upon which more tools can be added over time – either by government, or by planning authorities, or from the proptech marketplace.

“These tools might include more sophisticated search tools for individual developers, better analytics tools for local government, automation tools to speed up labour-intensive tasks, such as processing feedback from consultations, and better visualisation tools to help all users to find the information they are looking for more easily.”

The DLUHC asks the following specific questions:

It also wants to understand the challenges and opportunities.

The deadline for feedback is 18 October.

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