Mark welcomes Bolsover District Council’s inclusion in pilot digital planning tools scheme
Mark Fletcher MP has today welcomed £100,000 of funding which has been given to Bolsover District Council under the PropTech Engagement Fund pilot scheme by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
The Fund is part of a Government pilot designed to help local authorities adopt digital tools and open up planning to communities that typically would not engage in the process, and make the planning system more accountable and democratic by offering alternative routes to engage alongside traditional forms of engagement.
An overview of the proposal from Bolsover District Council;
"The first objective of this pilot is to simplify and speed up plan making through the creation of an interactive web-based GIS interface that produces policies and site allocations based on data rather than documents.
The second objective is to provide access to this interface and the same datasets used by officers to allow citizens to do more than simply comment on the plans. In this pilot, digital tools will allow citizens to create and submit alternative proposals by deleting and/or adding sites to the map.
The map interface will also include a dashboard that will present the consultee with the challenge of assembling appropriate development sites to deliver enough houses to meet identified needs and capture sufficient land value to pay for necessary infrastructure.
The game is ‘won’ by producing an alternative plan for the District that is judged to be sound. By gamifying strategic planning in this manner, the pilot will make the complexity of strategic planning easier to understand and easier to engage with."
Commenting, Mark said:
‘I am delighted that Bolsover District Council has been chosen as one of 13 local authorities to pilot these new processes.
I know that planning is something which can cause considerable concern in local communities, so I welcome new ways to try and engage on these issues. The planning system has long been open to criticism that it is outdated and complicated and am delighted that our local communities will be able to assist the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in its work to support Councils across the country in introducing digital planning tools’
You can read more information about the fund on the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Local Digital website here -> PropTech Engagement Fund - Local Digital
