2023 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

17th Edition

Phase 6 of 7

Publication Preparation 18/09/2023 - 06/11/2023

Process phases

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England: The PropTech Innovation Fund

Official proposal

26/05/2023 15:42

The current state of community input in planning decisions often overlooks or undervalues input from local communities. This leads to frustration, disempowerment, and a lack of trust among residents who feel their voices are disregarded. Traditional planning consultation experiences are often inaccessible and difficult to navigate, with technical language and extensive documents deterring community engagement.

Our PropTech Innovation Fund aims to address the challenges faced by communities in participating effectively in planning decisions, while also enhancing the transparency and inclusivity of the process. Our work is driven by the need to address the shortcomings of the current planning system and seeks to leverage UK PropTech capability and innovation to transform the planning process, empower communities, save time and money for local authorities and ensure a more meaningful and positive conversation around placemaking.

The Fund has a monitoring and evaluation framework to measure the impact of our initiatives on four key areas: time and cost savings for local authorities, increased quantity of engagement, improved quality in terms of diversity and representativeness, and an increase in positive sentiment for planning.

Initial results from Round 1 and Round 2 of the Fund (Rounds 2.5 and 3 are still live) have shown promising outcomes, including increased community participation, time and resource efficiencies, greater diversity in community groups that engage, positive sentiment shifts in planning conversations and the development of innovative and scalable digital tools by PropTech companies.

The success of the PropTech Innovation Fund's initiatives highlights the potential for more meaningful and inclusive conversations between local authorities and residents on planning and housing issues. Below are some examples of how and where this has been achieved:

Over 179,000 people saw the Harlow and Gilston Garden Town consultation, with 3 x greater respondents than previous consultations
South West Hertfordshire generated over 3,000 responses and over 1.2 million social media impressions for their Joint Local Plan (23% of visitors were under 34 - engaging young people was one of their main goals)
For London Borough of Newham’s pilot, 78% of participants said they had not (before this project) used Newham’s engagement platform - this shows the number of new voices they were able to bring into planning discussions through the digital pilot
Surrey County Council achieved a 342% increase in respondents under the age of 34 compared to the previous consultation (this gave a much greater reach to younger participants which was the project's primary aim)
In the London Borough of Waltham Forest, there was an over 100% increase in the percentage of people who would describe their ethnic background as Asian/Asian British engaged via the platform AND over 100% increase in the percentage of people who would describe their ethnic background as Black/African/Black British/Caribbean compared to previous engagement in Lea Bridge

The Fund has been recognised as global best practice in government innovation by the OECD, who included our work in their report on #embracing-innovation-in-government-global-trends-2023" target="_blank">Global Trends in Government Innovation 2023.