#PLANTECH: A DATA-DRIVEN AND DIGITALLY ENABLED PLANNING SYSTEM FIT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

In an age of rapid urban growth and expansion, planning is crucial to a city’s ability to be competitive whilst supporting the wellbeing of its citizens. Poor planning is not only costly and time consuming, it can result in chronic stresses that weaken a city, like high unemployment and a lack of essential services, while worsening events like natural disasters.

Over the past decade, digital technologies have transformed the way that people live, work and play – and yet, over the same period, the planning system has remained relatively unchanged. Today, planners are using 19th century governance and 20th century tools to tackle 21st century problems.

The Future of Planning programme has been exploring how planning could evolve over the coming years through the application of new practices and digital tools. It imagines a system of the future that is more user-friendly, more responsive to change, more informed by evidence, and more centred around the future needs and ideas of citizens.

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Launched in October 2016, the Future of Planning Programme aims to transform the UK planning system into a data-driven and digitally enabled system.

To meet this ambitious goal, we have been convening stakeholders from across the planning world, to better understand their needs and challenges; conducting research to build a case for change; and forming collaborative partnerships with local authorities and SMEs across the UK to stimulate the market with new ideas and

de-risk the development of new planning technologies.

WHAT WE’VE DONE SO FAR

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More urban areas will be created in the next 15 years than in all of human history

In the last year we have:

• Brought together planning practitioners from the fields of planning, architecture, development, citizen engagement and technology as part of our Future of Planning Sounding Board to guide our programme.

• Researched state of the art innovations in planning from around the world in order to understand the leading edge technologies transforming the planning sector today.

• Conducted in-depth user research to understand the most common challenges faced by those involved in the planning system as well as the areas for innovation.

• Ran an Open Call to identify and support orgnisations with good ideas for how we can transform the planning system.

• Held the first #PlanTech Week, running talks, events and an exhibition

• Worked for DCLG to identify where planning standards would be most impactful and how a ‘Land Information Platform’ could transform how Local Planning Authorities use data.

To download these reports go to www.futurecities.catapult.org.uk/project/future-of-planning/

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DATA INFORMED PLANNINGDuring the plan making process planning authorities pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for consultants to collect, synthesise and model data, to provide evidence for policies and demonstrate that a plan is sound. Authorities’ current ability to monitor both the outputs and outcomes of the plan is limited and not incentivised. The data that does exist is largely unavailable, inaccessible and lacking in common standards or clear purpose. This is resulting in overproduction, a short shelf life and a lack of reuse for different purposes, sharing between authorities or opening up to the public.

FLEXIBLE PLANNINGIt takes about four years to produce a local plan. During that time significant economic, political and technological shifts can and will occur. Plans, in their current form, lack the adaptability and holistic thinking to flex to these changes resulting in rapidly outdated or ambiguous policies, and uncertainty for developers and communities.

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USER RESEARCHOur user researchers talked to planners, citizen groups, developers and politicians in London, Greater Manchester and Plymouth, and identified four areas where the planning system needed an urgent upgrade.

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per cent of Local Plans are at least 5 years out of date43

IMPROVING THE USER EXPERIENCE OF PLANNING APPLICATIONSThe planning application process is labour intensive, opaque and confusing to the inexperienced. It is a stop-start system that is characterised by a back-and- forth between those involved. On entering the system it is unclear what lies ahead and large chunks of the process are hidden from view which can be frustrating and confusing.

INCREASING CITIZEN INFLUENCEThere are plenty of good citizen engagement practices out there but they are underused within the planning system. Citizen engagement follows the traditional ask/respond consultation model and is largely dictated by legislative requirements, repeatedly reaching similar demographics. Occurring too late in the process, citizens input often has little influence on decision making. Engagement usually takes the form of ‘objections’ and citizens lack a positive way to influence plan making and local development in a meaningful way.

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The planning application process is labour intensive, opaque and confusing to the inexperienced

Occurring too late in the process, citizens input often has little influence on decision making.

PLANNING TODAY

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EMERGING #PLANTECH PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Based on the four areas identified by our User

Research, we asked companies and planning

authorities to tell us about their ideas, prototypes

and products that could address the challenges

identified. From the 87 applicants to this Open Call

we selected nine winners and worked with them

over three months to advance their innovations.

87 9 3applicants selected month

collaboration

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Toolz created a custom-made interface (pictured above) that would allow planning officers to assess development proposals within a live 3D model of the city.

www.toolz.fr

HACT/OCSI have developed a tool that aggregates data to Neighbourhood Plan boundaries, to make it easier to build evidence for Neighbourhood Plans.

www.hact.org.uk

Toolz’s custom-made interface that would help planning officers

ODI Leeds created ‘A Clearer Plan’ a tool that provide a shared picture of the housing and planning landscape, in a tool which also demonstrates the potential for data in PDFs to be updated from the cloud (see right).

www.odileeds.org

Linknode explored the use of augmented reality to visualise unbuilt development proposals for public consultation.

www.linknode.co.uk

PlaceChangers explored how to make it easier for local councils to compile, update and coordinate their land, planning and development completions data.

www.placechangers.co.uk

The Behaviouralist applied machine learning and satellite image recognition to identify opportunities for green infrastructure on roofs.

www.thebehaviouralist.com

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ODI Leeds demonstrating the potential for increased access to planning and housing data

London Borough of Hackney created SidM, that brings together housing and social infrastructure data to forecast the impact of current population and future development on school and GP capacity.

www.hackney.gov.uk

Wikihouse and the London Borough of Southwark built an online tool to improve and automate aspects of householder planning applications (see right).

www.wikihouse.cc

Create Streets and Space Syntax created an online tool that rates the quality of places by analysing a range of different data sets from proximity to schools to tree distribution to air quality.

www.createstreets.com

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Wikihouse and London Borough of Southwark’s model to improve the planning application process for homeowners

Future Cities Catapult has also developed a small number of prototypes to stimulate the market, demonstrate the technical feasibility of new approaches and show the desirability of well conceived and designed #PlanTech tools.

One of the biggest challenges for city planners and developers is understanding whether there is enough infrastructure to support new development. Utility companies also wrestle with how to plan their expensive network capacity upgrades without a reasonable forecast of what major developments are planned. GrowthPlanner combines, models and visualises strategic information so utilities and planners can work closely together, today and in the future.

Infrastructure Capacity Modelling GrowthPlanner gathers data from key infrastructure providers to generate a heatmap of spare capacity on these networks today. It then applies the predicted development growth of the city to model and visualise the changes in infrastructure capacity over time.

Development Constraints The tools warns the user of a range of constraints that may affect proposed development such as flooding, conservation areas and listed buildings.

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Development Site Explorer The tool allows users to view site status details, capacity, connectivity and constraints, as well as compare different sites across the city.

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GrowPlanner’s interface

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As part of a planning pilot commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), we set out to design future tools to help speed up, reduce the costs and improve the quality of plan-making and planning decisions. The result was a Land Information Platform.

What if a machine could identify and prioritise potential development sites? What if you could see the impact of new development on the capacity of schools and GPs in your neighbourhood? What if planners could see the impact of affordable housing policy on the financial viability of new development? What if developers understood the expectations of planners before buying land?

The Land Information Platform is a user experience prototype for a new way of managing local land supply, planning policy and planning applications. It aims to draw together different data sources, urban modelling techniques and user workflows to support the development of more informed policies and decisions. It would provide planners, developers and citizens with a clearer view of the choices and trade-offs required of planning, as well as acting as a platform for others to build #PlanTech products and services.

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The Land Information Platform brings together a number of datasets, processes and policies into one user interface

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ABOUT THE FUTURE CITIES CATAPULTFuture Cities Catapult exists to advance innovation, to grow UK companies, to make cities better. We bring together businesses, universities and city leaders so that they can work with each other to solve the problems that cities face, now and in the future.

From our Urban Innovation Centre in London, we provide world-class facilities and expertise to support the development of new products and services, as well as opportunities to collaborate with others, test ideas and develop businesses models.

We help innovators turn ingenious ideas into working prototypes that can be tested in real urban settings. Once they’re proven, we help spread them to cities across the world to improve quality of life, strengthen economies and protect the environment.

HOW CAN WE HELP YOU? Please get in touch with us if you need assistance in:

• better understanding the Future of Planning opportunities and challenges for your business

• de-risking and proving the demand for new planning products and services.

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• finding innovative SMEs to meet your Future of Planning challenge

• specifying the nature of your business challenge to the market

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE, PLEASE EMAIL Stefan Webb, Head of Projects – swebb@futurecities.catapult.org.uk Euan Mills, Urban Futures Lead– emills@futurecities.catapult.org.uk

ABOUT CATAPULT CENTRES

The Catapult centres are a network of world-leading centres designed to transform the UK’s capability for innovation in specific areas and help drive future economic growth. The Catapults network has been established by Innovate UK. For more information visit catapult.org.uk

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Visit our website www.futurecities.catapult.org.uk

Follow us on Twitter @FutureCitiesCat

Or send us an email info@futurecities.catapult.org.uk