Editor's note: This brief was summarised by The Property AI Team from a report by Gov.UK Housing. Read the original article for full details.
Basildon Council Identifies 23% More Urban Housing Sites Using Digital Tools
Basildon Borough Council has identified 23% more potential urban housing sites after piloting a digital mapping and site analysis approach. The council also reduced the time needed to process call for sites submissions as part of its local plan work.
The council tested the use of LANDCLAN, a digital tool that analyses land parcels using Land Registry boundaries and standardised datasets, including planning policy, land use, flood risk, access to services, and proximity to infrastructure. Local datasets such as planning consents, planning applications, call for sites submissions, and council-owned land were also incorporated.
Planning officers worked with the supplier to develop criteria for identifying suitable sites, using absolute constraints to exclude inappropriate parcels and weighted criteria to score the remaining sites. The approach was refined and applied across all land parcels, producing ranked results that could be updated as data changed.
To increase transparency and gather public feedback, the council published an interactive map of identified sites using the Commonplace platform. Residents were able to view locations, rate their level of support, and leave comments. Over 1,000 public comments were received on urban capacity sites.
The pilot also supported closer collaboration between planning, asset management, and development teams by bringing planning, land ownership, and asset performance data into a single system. This enabled officers to focus on the most suitable sites for development, including underused council-owned land. The council identified 42 council-owned sites with redevelopment potential.
For letting agents and inventory clerks, the identification of more urban housing sites and the use of digital tools may signal increased opportunities for new instructions and property management in Basildon’s urban areas.
Source: Gov.UK Housing