AI to Speed Up Planning Decisions

An AI prototype that aims to halve decision times for routine planning applications is now being tested in three English counties.

If successful, the prototype will bring down decision making from 8, to 4 weeks in an average case.

The early stage testing with Barnet, Camden and Dorset councils triages planning applications, summarises key information and provides planning officers with an initial assessment they can consider when making their decision. It has been created by government together with Google DeepMind, Google Cloud, Faculty and local planning authorities.

Around 350,000 planning applications are submitted a year in England, yet the system remains heavily reliant on checking old documents.

Housing and Planning Minister, Matthew Pennycook, said: “We are dragging the system into the 21^st century by harnessing the power of AI to streamline the planning application process, freeing up planners to make quicker and better decisions.”

Householder applications account for nearly 70% of planning applications each year. If successful, the technology will be rolled out nationwide by 2027 – with every assessment reviewed and approved by a qualified planning officer before any decision is made.

Extract for Documents

Another AI tool, Extract, is now available to all councils in England to help planning officers convert decades-old planning documents and maps, sometimes with handwritten notes, into readily useable data in minutes.

Following trials across 20 local planning authorities in England including Exeter and Hillingdon, Extract is expected to save the average council around 255 hours of manual work digesting documents into digital form, cutting the estimated 250,000 hours a year spent in total.

Extract was developed by the government’s expert applied AI team, the Incubator for AI (i.AI), working with MHCLG’s Digital Planning programme.

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