Improved community engagement

New community engagement guidance and toolkits for LPAs will support the adoption of digital tools used during the consultation process. This will support a hybrid approach to engagement that uses digital and traditional methods, increasing the quality and quantity of feedback to shape development in their local area.

Through the PropTech Innovation Fund we are working with the PropTech sector to scale their services across LPAs.

Our vision is to support the local government ecosystem and growing UK PropTech market to innovate and adopt digital approaches to engaging communities, which in turn streamline the planning process and help enable faster housing and infrastructure development.

The MHCLG Digital Planning Programme is working to transform how local authorities and the development industry use digital tools to enable more inclusive and diverse placemaking.

This work is helping to tackle fundamental problems in the current planning system, such as low levels of public engagement, complexity of planning information and the inefficiencies of working in a system where data cannot be easily accessed, analysed or shared.

By fostering and steering existing market offerings to accelerate the widespread adoption of digital tools by LPAs, barriers to engagement with the planning system can be reduced and PropTech can act as a delivery vehicle for change and improved democracy.

Since launching in August 2021, MHCLG’s PropTech Innovation Fund has invested over £8m in local authorities who are adopting a blend of digital and traditional tools to undertake more inclusive and efficient consultations in planning. The fund is the largest UK Government PropTech programme and has been globally recognised as a best practice case study in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) report on Global Trends on Government Innovation 2023.

As part of our approach to advocating for greater adoption, we have worked with the sector to publish case studies which bring these projects and their outcomes’ to life. One example is where funded local authorities have increased engagement by up to 300%, developed new technology that is now being scaled by market leading companies and reached user groups who have not previously responded to planning in their local area.

As the fund develops, we will continue to support LPAs and the sector to scale by sharing best practice and guidance with the wider planning industry.

Key outcomes will include:

Increased quantity of community participation in planning.
Increased quality (diversity) of community voices engaged in planning.
Increased awareness about the benefits and trade-offs for new development to help enable faster housing and infrastructure development.
Increased transparency between LPAs and their communities which can support a positive relationship and greater trust.
Reduced planning officer time and resources to undertake consultations.

Our ongoing engagement with stakeholders in the PropTech sector aims to:

Accelerate adoption of innovative PropTech tools, the use of real time data and AI. The launch of the Digital Planning Directory is a valuable resource to support public and private stakeholders’ search and journey to adopt digital planning tools and services. It’s a ‘one-stop shop’ for state-of-the-art digital planning services. The Directory is seed-funded by MHCLG and delivered and managed by the Digital Task Force for Planning, an innovation-led not-for profit organisation.
Bring insights into policymaking to ensure new policy is flexible and enables the innovation required to improve England’s housing and planning systems.
Provide confidence on the direction of government ambitions, to spur investment and growth in the growing UK PropTech market.

Find out more about our work in the following areas:

Funding

We provide funding to LPAs to support this area of work. Find out more on this dedicated webpage.

Funding

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