The digital planning team in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has unveiled the beta version of its Planning Data Platform.
It said it has been developed to make land and housing data easier to find and use in order to support decision making and lay the ground for new digital services.
The product is still in development, with data not yet complete and legislation to mandate the underlying standards still in Parliament, but DLUHC is working with a group of local authorities to collect data according to the standards and encouraging organisations to provide feedback on the service.
Standards focus
Work on the standards is currently focused on conservation areas, listed buildings, Article 4 directions and tree preservation areas. The next stage will deal with local plans, design codes and planning applications and decisions.
The councils involved are Bolsover, North East Derbyshire, Buckinghamshire, Camden, Dacorum, Doncaster, Gloucester, Lambeth, Medway, Newcastle and Southwark.
The data is currently available in text format and as a national map and is being used by two recently launched national services: the Back Office Planning System and Reduce Invalid Planning Applications.
Other plans include making it possible to download a dataset and subscribe to changes to keep the copy up-to-date, and the publication of a tool that gives local authorities feedback on the data they provide.
