By Dr Wei Yang OBE, chief government of the Digital Process Drive for Planning
If planning shapes our cities, then planning data have to be handled as a public good. But too usually, this important data is locked away in codecs which are inaccessible and unfit for contemporary use. Native Plans and key coverage paperwork are nonetheless routinely printed in static, hard-to-navigate codecs that frustrate residents, overwhelm planners, and impede builders. The result’s a system that limits engagement, slows supply, and misses alternatives for smarter, extra inclusive planning.
A brand new wave of digital transformation is underway. Surrey County Council applied Place CoPilot, an AI-powered instrument, to make complicated design code data simply accessible to builders and designers. By swiftly offering trusted, source-linked solutions, the instrument saves important time, reduces guide question dealing with, and boosts adherence to native planning requirements. Its user-friendly interface and customisability improve transparency, foster higher relationships amongst stakeholders, and assist the creation of well-designed city environments, setting a brand new commonplace for effectivity and belief in native planning processes.
When planning knowledge is opened up on this means, it permits key stakeholders to seek out what they want shortly, boosting transparency and enabling earlier, extra significant participation. Against this, when data is buried in prolonged stories, it delays responses, duplicates effort, and erodes belief within the course of. As planning groups nationwide take care of growing workloads, making data extra accessible is essential, not solely to scale back enquiry time, but in addition to enhance the standard of planning software submissions. This precedence can’t be overstated.
This undertaking arrives at a time when momentum is constructing round digital innovation in planning. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Native Authorities’s (MHCLG) PropTech Innovation Problem, developed in partnership with Geovation, has attracted over 100 proposals and 225 collaborating organisations. These embody AI instruments to evaluate growth potential, platforms to visualise land constraints, and functions that automate routine processes. Nonetheless, many of those improvements depend on constant, high-quality knowledge to be able to operate successfully. With out a shared strategy to structuring coverage data, even essentially the most promising digital instruments are restricted of their influence.
That is the place the Digital Planning Listing performs a important function. Created by the Digital Process Drive for Planning and seed-funded by MHCLG, the Listing brings collectively a various vary of digital service space suppliers, encompassing knowledge analytics, group engagement, spatial platforms, immersive applied sciences, and extra. It additionally showcases over 120 real-world case research to assist planning authorities navigate a quickly evolving market. As planning turns into more and more data-led, the Listing helps be sure that innovation just isn’t solely technically attainable, however institutionally actionable. It transforms a scattered panorama of pilots right into a coordinated ecosystem, providing a shared platform for studying, iteration and supply.
One of many greatest boundaries to digital adoption just isn’t expertise itself, however confidence. Solely 17 p.c of planning workers say they really feel capable of establish acceptable instruments, and simply 15 p.c really feel outfitted to acquire them. As a vital digital planning useful resource, the Listing addresses the problem by connecting councils with confirmed options. This ecosystem of service suppliers and strategies allows native authorities to focus much less on trying to find options, and extra on delivering outcomes.
The advantages are already turning into seen. Councils adopting digital planning options are reporting important time financial savings throughout a variety of planning actions, from responding to resident queries to assessing website constraints. Builders can measure insurance policies algorithmically reasonably than parsing them manually. And communities can have interaction with proposals by codecs which are simpler to grasp, decreasing the sense that choices occur behind closed doorways. In consequence, officers spend much less time repeating duties, and extra time making use of their experience the place it issues: in design assessment, public session and negotiation.
What makes the Listing particularly promising is its concentrate on scalability. With the assist from MHCLG and key companions, it units the stage for nationwide coordination reasonably than remoted experimentation.
The success of planning reform depends on how successfully planning insurance policies and the decision-making course of are communicated to key stakeholders, with a concentrate on transparency and effectivity. We have to construct a planning system that thinks digitally from the bottom up: one the place knowledge is structured, usable, and aligned to real-world service supply. This transformation won’t occur abruptly. However by targeted funding, coordinated efforts, and robust partnerships, it’s now firmly underway.
Dr Wei Yang OBE is the CEO of the Digital Process Drive for Planning and one of many UK’s main planning professionals. She is a grasp planner, previous President of the Royal City Planning Institute, and has suggested on sustainable planning coverage all over the world. In 2025, she was awarded an OBE for companies to the city planning trade.
