AI prototype aims to halve England’s planning decision times

TL;DR:

• A government AI prototype built with Google DeepMind, Google Cloud and UK firm Faculty aims to cut routine householder planning decisions from eight weeks to four.
• It is in early testing with Barnet, Camden and Dorset councils, triaging applications and drafting an initial assessment for a planning officer to review.
• A second tool, Extract, is now available to every council in England, digitising decades of paper planning records in minutes.

The government has unveiled two artificial intelligence tools intended to speed up England’s planning system and support its pledge to build 1.5 million homes this Parliament. The headline prototype, Augmented Planning Decisions, is being tested with three councils and could halve the time taken to decide straightforward householder applications such as loft conversions and extensions.

How the tools work

The prototype triages incoming applications, summarises key information and provides planning officers with a provisional assessment they can weigh before deciding. Householder applications account for nearly 70% of the roughly 350,000 submitted each year, so trimming time spent on routine cases is meant to free officers for complex housing and infrastructure decisions. Crucially, the government stresses every assessment will be reviewed and signed off by a qualified planning officer — the tool recommends, people decide.

Speaking to the on-the-ground rollout, Barnet’s executive director for growth, Naisha Polaine, said the prototype’s ability to gather information and draft a report could save “significant officer time”. The second tool, Extract, converts decades-old planning documents and handwritten maps into usable digital data and is now open to all English councils, fulfilling a commitment the Prime Minister made last year. Trials across 20 authorities suggest it saves an average council around 255 hours of manual work, down from more than 500.

Looking forward

Funded by an £8.2 million contract, the prototype could be rolled out nationwide from 2027 if trials succeed, with up to 10 more councils expected to join later this year. It lands alongside the government’s wider £200m drive to get UK businesses using AI and a Cisco deal to build a Barnsley “Tech Town”. The framing is deliberately cautious — admin removed, judgement retained — but the test will be whether councils trust a Google-built triage layer enough to lean on it, and whether faster routine decisions genuinely redirect scarce officer time to the housing schemes communities are waiting on.