New technology is reshaping how planning is delivered – improving efficiency, transparency and outcomes for communities. 3 out of the 4 finalists in this year’s Planning Awards’ use of digital technology in planning category, are projects funded by the Digital Planning programme, demonstrating how targeted planning technology pilots, based in live settings, are showing real results in practice.
The PropTech (property technology) Innovation Fund is a flagship part of the Digital Planning programme, supporting local authorities and industry to test and adopt digital tools that modernise planning and accelerate the delivery of 1.5 million homes. It is the UK Government’s largest PropTech initiative and has been recognised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as best practice in public sector innovation.
Each shortlisted project has been developed in close collaboration with planners, built around real workload pressures and tested on live planning activity. The outcomes aren’t just proof of concept but already changing how planning teams are working day to day.
AI-assisted application processingLeeds City Council and Xylo have piloted Xylo Core, an AI-enabled tool which helps planning officers validate and process planning applications, assisting them to check documents, identify relevant planning history and policies, and draft report sections for them to review and approve before they use them. It enables officers to spend more of their time on professional judgement rather than administrative processing.
Part of the PropTech Innovation Challenge, the tool has been co-designed directly with planning officers, reflecting real workflows and day-to-day practice. Tested on live planning applications over a 3-month period, it has demonstrated average time savings of around 1 day a week for officers, showing the potential for responsible AI to improve public services.
Helen Cerroti, Team Leader (Business and Systems Support), at Leeds City Council, said:
“We’re extremely proud to have the Leeds City Council and Xylo partnership shortlisted for the Planning Awards. This recognition reflects a genuinely collaborative, co-designed approach between our planning officers and Xylo, focused on solving real planning challenges rather than technology for its own sake. By streamlining administrative tasks and improving access to planning data, the tool is already delivering practical benefits for our service, enhancing decision making and giving officers more time to focus on complex work. Being shortlisted is a real boost for the teams involved and reinforces the value of partnership-based innovation in local government.”
AI-powered consultation summarisationGreater Cambridge Shared Planning – the joint planning service for Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire District Councils – partnered with the University of Liverpool to develop PlanAI, an artificial intelligence tool designed to handle one of the most time-consuming tasks in plan-making – processing the large volumes of responses submitted during public consultations.
Built using a substantial dataset of historic consultation responses, the tool breaks down and summarises the feedback more efficiently, enabling officers to spend their time analysing the feedback and supporting greater citizen engagement.
Early results saw the tool successfully summarise 3 planning consultations, in 16 minutes – a task that took 18.5 hours to do manually. That is a 98% efficiency saving and a clear indication of how AI can support planning teams with their workloads.
Terry de Sousa, Planning Policy and Strategy Team Leader, Greater Cambridge Shared Planning, said:
“This achievement reflects a collaborative effort across the public, private and academic sectors, and is already delivering tangible benefits by accelerating how public feedback on planning policy documents is summarised. PlanAI is purpose-built for planning, trained on thousands of past submissions and developed in collaboration with our planning officers, ensuring outputs that are tailored to our needs and enabling our planning officers to focus on technical, rather than administrative, tasks.”
Transforming site assessment for a new Local PlanPlymouth City Council partnered with Urban Intelligence to modernise their site assessment process as work began on a new Local Plan. Using PlaceMaker’s site analysis and dashboards, officers have been able to assess potential development sites more consistently and transparently. They can now carry out site suitability assessments independently – bringing together constraints mapping, land ownership data and automated density calculations in a single platform, rather than navigating multiple disparate systems. The specialist site assessment tool has transformed the council's approach to identifying development opportunities, enabling proactive engagement with landowners to identify future development opportunities.
The result is a planning service less dependent on specialist Geographic Information System (GIS) staff and better equipped to maintain up-to-date evidence throughout the Local Plan process. The project illustrates how digital platforms can support proactive spatial planning and provide a clearer evidence base for strategic decisions.
Ed Mannings from the Strategic Planning Team, at Plymouth City Council, said:
“Plymouth City Council are delighted our partnership work with Urban Intelligence has been recognised by initial shortlisting in the Planning Awards. The PropTech Innovation Fund has been critical to enabling planning officers the time and resource to modernise past planning practices through the co-development and use of digital tools which will be the foundation of our strategic work and be critical to meeting the new 30-month timetable for plan making.”
What these projects tell usTogether, the finalists illustrate how digital technology is no longer an aspiration for planning; it is part of how planning is now being done.
These digital tools are all freeing up capacity by supporting or automating data-heavy, time consuming tasks – managing application workloads, processing consultation responses and assessing development sites. That gives planners back time for the work that requires professional expertise and local knowledge. There are improvements too for consistency and accountability, benefiting both officers and the communities they serve.
With the government's ambition to deliver 1.5 million homes in this Parliament, the planning system is under real pressure to help make that happen. These projects show how digital innovation is a serious part of the answer.
PropTech Innovation Fund Round 6Applications for Round 6 of the PropTech Innovation Fund are now open. With £2.4 million for up to 12 pilots, this round focuses on two challenge areas: plan-making and Section 106 agreements. We’re looking for mixed partnerships to apply – bringing together technology companies, local authorities, the development industry, community organisations, and academia – to test real solutions in real places, from summer 2026 to early 2027. All consortia must include local planning authorities (LPAs) – with dedicated funding available for LPAs who take part. Applications close on 29 April.
seen at 16:33, 13 April in MHCLG Digital.