Laying the foundations for better local public services
PropTech Innovation Fund
About the PropTech Innovation Fund
The PropTech Innovation Fund aims to accelerate the adoption of digital citizen engagement tools and transform community involvement in placemaking. Our ongoing programme is the largest UK Government PropTech Programme funding local authorities to work with industry at pace and scale to radically transform how communities can engage in the planning system.
The Fund was introduced in July 2021, it was set up to support the PropTech sector and local authorities to accelerate adoption of technology that will enhance community engagement and deliver a modern planning system.
The insights generated through the Fund will inform government’s work to modernise the planning system and wider policy reform. It will support the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to work with local planning authorities to establish best practice and develop digital guidance.
You can find out more about the projects and pilots funded through the PropTech Innovation Fund on our Digital Planning Case Studies page. We will add more case studies from various rounds of funding as they become available.
We will be hosting a public PropTech Showcase on Thursday 28 November 2024 from 2pm to 3pm. It’s a good opportunity to find out how Local Planning Authorities are using digital tools to improve the planning process. Register to receive an invitation to the session and hear how three projects from the PropTech Innovation Fund Round 4 are using property technology such as 3D mapping and visualisation, cross-district planning and site assessment software. There will be time for questions and the meeting will be recorded.
Funding rounds
Round 4 (2024 – current)
In February 2024 we announced that 37 more council-led pilot projects across 49 Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) have been awarded funding through Round 4 of the PropTech Innovation Fund. Each project will demonstrate the benefits of how digital solutions can be leveraged across land assessment (improving current approaches to identifying and evaluating sites, including viability and feasibility assessments, analysing small sites, or land assembly projects) as well as digital citizen engagement work on visualising planning and development proposals.
You can find out more about this most recent round of funding in this MHCLG Digital Blog post.
Round 3 (2023)
In March 2023 we announced 15 more council-led projects have been awarded a total of £3.2 million of funding through Round 3 of the PropTech Innovation Fund. 27 Local Planning Authority (LPAs) are involved in the pilots, some of which see multiple LPAs working in partnership.
In September 2022, project teams from Round 1 and 2 were invited to apply for funding under the Continuous Funding Model (CFM). The CFM is designed to help funded project teams to maintain momentum and continuity. Instead of waiting for further funding rounds to open, projects can apply for funding for their next stage of work shortly after completing the previous phase.
In January 2022, we invited local authorities to submit proposals that focused on how more inclusive community feedback can be used to inform the design and delivery process, to enable a culture of co-design and increase public interest and participation in planning. In March 2022 we announced funding had been awarded.
MHCLG awarded a total of £3,020,321 of funding to 28 projects:
Plymouth City Council (joint bid with South Hams District Council and West Devon Borough Council): £285,000
London Borough of Newham: £125,000
Epping Forest District Council (joint bid with East Herts District Council, Harlow Council, Hertfordshire County Council and Essex County Council): £228,800
East Hampshire District Council: £40,500
West Oxfordshire District Council: £118,250
Watford Borough Council: £123,000
Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council: £120,000
Birmingham City Council: £65,500
South Cambridgeshire District Council: £117,000
London Borough of Redbridge: £125,000
London Borough of Haringey: £99,000
London Borough of Waltham Forest: £69,500
Havant Borough Council: £83,450
Southampton City Council: £125,000
Harborough District Council: £125,000
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: £118,000
Epsom and Ewell Borough Council: £125,000
Runnymede Borough Council: £90,020
London Borough of Lambeth: £92,164
Leicester City Council: £86,750
Stevenage Borough Council: £125,000
London Borough of Wandsworth (joint bid with London Borough of Richmond upon Thames): £98,000
Cornwall Council: £125,000
Wirral Council: £92,950
Bolsover District Council: £95,800
Dacorum Borough Council (joint bid with St Albans City & District Council, Three Rivers District Council, Hertsmere Borough Council, Watford Borough Council and Hertfordshire County Council): £121,750
Lewes District Council: £112,500
Surrey County Council: £121,187
Round 1 (2021)
The first round of the PropTech Innovation Fund was launched in August 2021 to increase the use of digital engagement within the planning process and work towards identifying and resolving barriers to adoption.
UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) 