The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is planning to provide over £1 million to five partnerships between local authorities and software providers to implement new data standards in planning applications.
It will also distribute £2.3 million among 46 local authorities to increase their digital planning operations, and £300,000 each for three projects in the field.
Its Digital Planning team has indicated that the five partnerships between authorities and software firms will receive £225,000 each to work with Planning Portal in piloting the new planning applications data standards currently under development.
The five projects will run from April to December, and involve: Redbridge working with Agile Applications/IEG4; Salford with Arcus Global; Dorset with DEF; Leeds with Idox; and Hounslow with NEC.
Preparing nationwide roll out
“Each partnership will test and implement the new data standards, capturing and sharing what they learn before a nationwide roll out across other local authorities in England,” the Digital Planning team said.
“As well as accelerating the adoption of the new data standards, they will also explore additional benefits that consistent data across planning back office systems can deliver.
“This focus on data standardisation will enable planning applications to be processed more efficiently – a significant milestone in our journey towards a fully modernised planning system that serves everyone better.”
MHCLG is to also to provide £50,000 to the 46 councils on their joining the Open Digital Planning (ODP) community to help them to adopt modern planning practices, publish relevant planning data and develop their digital capabilities.
Each will be expected to play an active role in the community – which now has 117 local planning authorities involved – self-assess the digital maturity of their planning and develop an action plan to improve the service over time.
They will also be expected to improve and publish four spatial datasets to the Planning Data Platform, on conservation areas, listed buildings, tree preservation orders and Article 4 directions.
Standalone projects
In addition, three projects are to receive £300,000 each, all to begin this month and run for a full year.
The City of London Corporation is leading on a project to create a standardised approach to digitalising local plans and their associated data. It aims to make the planning documents more accessible for communities and stakeholders to use.
The Greater Manchester Digital Planning Project will see Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the Greater London Authority working together to build on the experience from the Planning London Data Hub. This collaboration aims to explore whether a similar data platform can be created for Greater Manchester.
Finally, the London Borough of Lambeth will research, design and develop a simple, front and back office prototype, re-using existing work. The project will also explore integration with existing back office planning systems.
