UK local authorities roll-out pilot projects to modernise planning processes

Pilot projects to explore the use of 3D, community consultation platforms and mapping tools in the planning process are being run by three UK local authorities following a competition to find planners with innovative ideas.

Nottingham City Council in the East Midlands, Dacorum Borough Council in Hertfordshire and South Ayrshire in Scotland will work with Esri UK, which ran the competition and will provide free consultancy and access to its geographic information systems (GIS).

Common challenges

The competition set out to explore how best to use geospatial technology to help modernise the planning process. It revealed several common planning challenges faced by local authorities, which are being addressed by the pilots, including the improvement of community engagement, how to maximise the use of 3D visualisations and how to manage developer contributions more efficiently.

Esri UK is also creating a Customer Advisory Board to help grow best practice use of GIS within planning.

Stephen Croney, head of sector for land, property and planning, Esri UK, said by combining each council’s domain expertise with its team of geospatial experts, the pilot projects will explore new and efficient approaches to problems designed to help make the planning process easier for everyone.

“It became clear that finding new ways of applying GIS in planning opened the minds of councils entering the competition as to what problems could be solved”

“Geospatial technologies can help shape the future of the planning process by delivering significant cost and time-savings,” continued Croney. “Spatial data provides the common language to join different data together and make it meaningful. Helping to understand the spatial nature of our environment so that we can better determine its future, means that more sustainable communities are created and helps with the levelling up agenda too.”

The Customer Advisory Board will provide a forum for local planning authorities to discuss best practice and share common problems and goals. Croney added: “It became clear that finding new ways of applying GIS in planning opened the minds of councils entering the competition as to what problems could be solved. The advisory board will help planning teams learn from each other, make better use of their investment in GIS and shape the future of digital transformation within planning.”

Selected from almost 50 entries, the winning applications are:

Dacorum Borough Council

Dacorum Borough Council wants to translate existing text and spreadsheets by using digital mapping to better manage and communicate infrastructure and developer contributions, secured through planning obligations.

“The objective is to use digital mapping to help with not only the decision-making around the planning of new infrastructure and make the whole process more transparent but also to support community engagement,” said councillor Alan Anderson, portfolio holder, planning and infrastructure at Dacorum Borough Council.