By Laura Potts, MRTPI, Planning Consultant
At CAD Planning in Truro, we are closely following an exciting government initiative that has recently been announced.
At the Times Tech Summit in London on 21st October 2025, the government set out plans for a regulated testing programme, called an AI Growth Lab, to allow trials of artificial intelligence (AI) products in real‑world conditions.
Planning approvals and housing development are a prominent target for these pilots.
The proposal aims to create sectoral ‘sandboxes’ in areas such as planning, health, professional services, transport and advanced manufacturing. Within those sandboxes, certain regulatory requirements could be modified or suspended for fixed periods so developers and public bodies can gather evidence on benefits, risks and operational impacts before wider deployment.
The potential benefits of the AI blueprint
Streamlined planning applications are among the benefits people can expect to see from the new blueprint for AI regulation, as the UK government looks to cut bureaucracy and ramp up the safe adoption of AI to unlock its full potential.
Government figures cited in the announcement highlight that a typical housing development application can run to 4,000 pages and take up to 18 months from submission to decision. The Growth Lab would test how AI tools might support planning officials to speed up decision‑making, reduce paperwork and help meet the government’s target of 1.5M new homes by the end of the current Parliament.
It is proposed that carefully supervised trials could shorten processing times for development applications, enabling faster delivery of housing and associated infrastructure.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said: “To deliver national renewal, we want to remove the needless red tape that slows progress so we can drive growth and modernise the public services people rely on every day. This isn’t about cutting corners – it’s about fast-tracking responsible innovations that will improve lives and deliver real benefits.”
At CAD Planning, the leading planning consultancy in Cornwall, we are very interested to see this development and believe that a new AI blueprint could help streamline planning applications, delivering greater efficiency, transparency, and ultimately, a more responsive planning system.
At present, planning applications in the UK typically involve multiple stages: pre-application advice, submission, consultation, assessment, and decision. Each stage requires substantial documentation, communication, and regulatory checks. Local planning officers must review plans, consult statutory bodies, consider public feedback, and ensure compliance with national and local policies. The volume of paperwork and the complexity of regulations means that processing times can be lengthy.
Digital transformation efforts over the past decade have led to online submission portals and improved access to planning documents. However, these systems still require significant manual input from both applicants and planning officers. The result is a process that remains labour-intensive, with bottlenecks in validation, consultation, and decision-making.
The proposed AI blueprint for the UK planning system seeks to address these challenges head-on. Making use of advances in data science, machine learning, and natural language processing, the blueprint outlines a multi-layered approach to re-engineering how planning applications are managed. The overall objectives are to reduce processing times, improve accuracy, enhance transparency, and free up human resources for higher-value tasks.
Key Features of the AI Blueprint
- Automated Document Validation: AI-powered tools can automatically check submitted documents for completeness, flag missing information, and ensure that drawings and technical reports adhere to required standards. This would dramatically reduce the time spent on initial validation and eliminate common sources of delay.
- Intelligent Policy Matching: Machine learning algorithms can analyse applications and cross-reference them with relevant national and local planning policies. By automating this policy matching, AI can highlight areas of compliance and concern, providing planning officers with clear, data-driven insights.
- Natural Language Processing for Consultation: Public consultations generate vast amounts of feedback, often in free-text formats. AI-driven natural language processing can categorise, summarise, and analyse these responses, ensuring that key issues are flagged and reducing the burden on planning teams to manually review every submission.
- Predictive Decision Support: By learning from historical data, AI systems can offer predictive insights into the likely outcomes of applications. This could help applicants refine proposals before submission and assist planning officers in identifying precedents and potential challenges.
- Smart Workflow Automation: End-to-end process automation can route applications to appropriate reviewers, schedule consultations, and trigger alerts for statutory deadlines. This ensures that applications move through the system efficiently and transparently.
Benefits for Stakeholders
The new AI blueprint could offer significant advantages for all parties involved in the planning process:
- Applicants: Faster validation and clearer guidance reduce uncertainty and the risk of costly delays. Automated feedback enables applicants to address issues proactively.
- Planning Authorities: AI reduces administrative workload, allowing officers to focus on complex cases and strategic planning. Automation also improves consistency in decision-making and auditability.
- Communities: Enhanced consultation tools ensure that community voices are heard and synthesised effectively, increasing trust in the planning process.
- Developers: Predictable timelines and data-driven insights make planning process simpler and faster
Challenges and considerations
While the promise of AI is compelling, successful implementation requires careful consideration. Data privacy and security are paramount, especially given the sensitive nature of planning data. Algorithms must be transparent and explainable to avoid bias and ensure public trust. There is also the challenge of integrating AI with existing legacy systems and ensuring robust training for planning officers and applicants.
Legal and ethical frameworks will need updating to accommodate automated decision-making. The role of human judgement remains crucial, particularly for complex or contentious applications. The blueprint therefore emphasises AI as a tool to augment, rather than replace, professional expertise.
The path to full-scale adoption of the AI blueprint involves phased implementation, starting with high-impact use cases such as document validation and policy matching. Collaboration between central government, local authorities, technology providers, and the planning profession is essential. Funding models, procurement frameworks, and standards for interoperability are being developed to support wider rollout.
Conclusion
The new AI blueprint represents a step towards a smarter, fairer, and more efficient planning system in the UK. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, local authorities can deliver better outcomes for applicants and communities.
While challenges remain, the potential benefits are too significant to ignore. As the blueprint moves from theory to practice, it promises to transform the way planning applications are managed in future in the UK.
The government has called for public feedback on its plans for the AI Growth Lab, and the consultation is open until 2nd January 2026.
https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/ai-growth-lab
Get in touch to find out how we could help you with your project by emailing info@cad-planning.co.uk