TL;DR

The housing ministry said on 30 October that PlanAssist, its AI assistant for planning officers, will run in 15 English councils for the next 12 months, with the aim of offering it to all of them by the end of 2027. Ministers cite a 58% cut in time on key tasks from early testing at three authorities. The harder evidence comes next, because this phase is what tests that figure on live applications at scale.

PlanAssist is the new name for the prototype we covered in June, built with Google DeepMind, Google Cloud and Faculty. It targets household applications such as loft conversions and extensions, which the government says make up nearly 70% of what authorities receive each year.

What the pilot showed

Google DeepMind’s account of the tool, which is built on its Gemini models, gives more detail on how it works. It validates submitted documents and drawings, checks proposals against heritage constraints and planning policy, looks for earlier objections, then drafts a cited report for an officer to edit. In the Barnet, Camden and Dorset pilots, which began in June, more than 70% of those reports were approved with no edits, DeepMind says.

The department goes further on results, saying the change helps to halve processing for routine cases, from eight weeks to four. Those are developer and ministry figures from early testing rather than an independent evaluation, and DeepMind’s own summary words the 58% as “up to”.

The 12 newcomers are Ashford, Bristol, Cumberland, Lambeth, Newcastle, North Lincolnshire, Nottingham, Redbridge, Rochdale, South Gloucestershire, Stoke-on-Trent and Westminster. Officers will use it alongside their normal process and keep responsibility for every decision.

A wider package

The AI tool arrived with two non-AI measures. A National Scheme of Delegation took effect on 31 October, sending straightforward applications to officers rather than to committee. Ministers also say 420 planners have been recruited through government-backed schemes, ahead of a manifesto target of 300.

That matters when reading the headline numbers. Any faster decisions in the coming year are likely to reflect all three changes, so isolating what the software contributed may not be simple.

Looking Forward

PlanAssist will not be compulsory. Instead, by the end of 2027 the government plans to require councils’ key planning documents to be digitised and openly published, a step it says will help any property technology product.

In our view, that is the more interesting commitment for UK suppliers and councils. It leaves room for competing tools, while the question still to be answered is whether results from three authorities hold across the mix of metropolitan and rural councils now joining.