Data and digital technology won’t fix the housing crisis – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – but they could help diversify the housebuilding market, writes Euan Mills, head of digitising planning at Future Cities Catapult. They could also help reduce the risks of development and make it easier to enter the market, increase competition and (hopefully) deliver more homes.
The complexity of the planning system, which is multiplied when a scheme is on previously developed land, means the knowledge required to navigate the convoluted and obscure processes involved in profitable large- and medium-scale housing development is inaccessible to most. While this is good for those who use the knowledge (those eight large housebuilding organisations), and for those who sell it (consultants), it excludes everyone else from the market.
One of the biggest barriers to understanding how to navigate the system and access critical information is the public sector. Critical information is still stored in analogue formats: it is hard to access, harder to understand and even harder to make use of – by human or by machine. This is where digital technology can help – making information more accessible to all.
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Data and digital technology won’t fix the housing crisis – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – but they could help diversify the housebuilding market, writes Euan Mills, head of digitising planning at Future Cities Catapult. They could also help reduce the risks of development and make it easier to enter the market, increase competition and (hopefully) deliver more homes.
The complexity of the planning system, which is multiplied when a scheme is on previously developed land, means the knowledge required to navigate the convoluted and obscure processes involved in profitable large- and medium-scale housing development is inaccessible to most. While this is good for those who use the knowledge (those eight large housebuilding organisations), and for those who sell it (consultants), it excludes everyone else from the market.
One of the biggest barriers to understanding how to navigate the system and access critical information is the public sector. Critical information is still stored in analogue formats: it is hard to access, harder to understand and even harder to make use of – by human or by machine. This is where digital technology can help – making information more accessible to all.
In March 2018, Future Cities Catapult and Gateshead Council were awarded funding from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Planning Delivery Fund to explore how Gateshead could help small developers build more on their brownfield sites. We spent nine months doing user and data research and spoke to more than 25 stakeholders.
The outcome was a prototype digital service that provides potential developers with the information they need about a site early in the process, increasing certainty and reducing risk. Developers can search available sites on the Gateshead website and see a tailored list of constraints and planning requirements for each site. They can access information on the studies required when submitting an application, as well as potential mitigation measures and benchmark costs. This has been possible only through making existing public datasets available and accessible in one place.
No more survey surprises
Our user research identified 14 characteristics of a site that frequently come up as a surprise to the developers only after they have started the planning process. These include flooding, contamination, protected species and archaeological remains.
Our prototype provides information on the implications of these issues, including the potential cost for mitigation, and any additional studies required by the planning authority. If a piece of land is likely to be contaminated, the developer is advised that a Phase 1 Preliminary Risk Assessment Study will be required. If the contamination is known, the tool would provide a benchmark cost for remediation, based on previous data and market intelligence.
The developer will also be given a site-specific list of documents that the planning authority requires for the application to be valid. For example, if a listed building is on or near the site, the developer would be advised that a Heritage Assessment is required – and what the typical cost of one might be. If the site might be home to a protected species, the need for a survey would be flagged.
Last, as the developer adds details about the types and tenure of housing they want to build, they are given an estimation of CIL requirements and the likely S106 contributions that will be asked for.
All this can be done using data that already exists, but is too often in formats that are not machine-readable, and are hidden away by specialist consultants who benefit from that information being inaccessible to most people.
Data and digital technology can help with this. It can level the playing field between smaller and larger developers, by making the system more understandable and accessible, and by using public data to better quantify risk – ultimately allowing more land to be developed for housing.
With the success of the Gateshead prototype, we are hoping to collaborate with other local authorities in the future to make planning more transparent and streamline the housebuilding process for the industry as a whole.
