Planning under pressure: The story behind the 30-month deadline

Long before the 30-month timetable was announced, planning teams across the country were already wrestling with rising workloads, growing datasets, changing community expectations, and a mounting need for transparency. The new timetable doesn’t create those pressures; it compresses them into a short, structured pathway with clearer stages and less room for drift.  

At the same time, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are increasingly explicit about the direction of travel: plan-making needs to be simpler, more accessible, more map-based, and more digital-first and not a procession of long PDFs that are hard to navigate and harder to reuse.  

It was clear from the discussions, and from the live questions and commentary from the wider planning community, that the 30-month timeframe introduces both challenges and opportunities, and raises important questions about what’s needed to make it deliverable. 

In this blog, we explore themes that surfaced in the discussion: what’s working, what’s worrying people, and what’s coming next. 

Planners are becoming “more tech people” (and that’s unavoidable now) 

One of the clearest insights from our recent webinar highlighted that digitalisation is not a nice-to-have - it’s now fundamental to planning, especially with the new timetable. 

Tom Lewis, Principal Planning Officer at Stoke-on-Trent City Council, highlighted how the role of the planner is shifting: “Planners are having to evolve into more tech people.” 

This isn’t about turning planners into software developers. It’s about the day-to-day reality of modern planning: 

  • navigating multiple systems and data formats
  • interpreting spatial evidence and constraints
  • working more closely with GIS and digital teams
  • communicating complex proposals more clearly to communities 

Nationally, this direction is reinforced by the government’s Digital Planning programme, which explicitly focuses on standardised data, collaboration, and better digital tools to make planning more efficient and inclusive. (MHCLG Digital) 

Planning Teams described the challenge of stretched GIS staff, risk-averse ICT departments, and a steep learning curve for new tools. But they also described the benefits: more efficient workflows, better mapping, clearer communication with communities, and ultimately a more accessible plan. 

The “Call for Sites” example that shows the shift 

If you want one moment that captures the move from document-heavy planning to spatial-first planning, it’s the evolution of Call for Sites. 

Bethany Edwards, Senior Planning Officer, from Winchester City Council, described the practical difference digital tools can make: 

 
“Call for Sites we used to have people sending in hand-drawn maps that were in black and white with no context. Now we’ve got a system where people can map it directly onto a map themselves – put in the size, how many dwellings, and any constraints. We’re already seeing where we can save time.” 

Objective Keyplan has been the solution for Winchester’s Call for Sites process. Integration with GIS means Winchester’s site pipeline now flows into assessment and evidence stages without duplication or manual re-entry. For Spatial Planning teams, this means fewer bottlenecks, less back-and-forth with GIS teams, and a clearer picture of land availability from the very start. 

What was once one of the largest administrative burdens - processing Call for Sites - is becoming the foundation of a spatial-first Local Plan. 

AI, automation & data handling are removing tedious tasks 

If digitalisation is becoming the operating system of planning, AI is fast becoming the engine. 

For councils such as Winchester and Stoke-on-Trent, AI has been a transformative experience in replacing administrative tasks. Bethany captured AI’s potential: 

 
“We found with our Reg 19 consultation response analysis, what took 8 officers 18 months, took AI a matter of weeks.” 

Tom echoed this: 
“It's been great that AI can take 7,000 pages of documents on the consultation and tell us really what the key issues are coming out, with a great deal of confidence.” 

AI’s role is not to replace planning judgement but to remove the administrative drag that prevents planners from doing planning. 

As Bethany put it: 
“It's important to note that AI can be a tool to support planners, but it's never going to replace planners. I see it as a way to buy back some time.” 

But the concerns are real: bias, data security, governance, explainability, and public trust. The safer framing (and the one we recommend) is: 

  • AI supports analysis and triage
  • humans remain responsible for decisions and interpretation
  • outputs need auditability: why did the tool conclude this, and how was it checked? 

That “traceability” becomes even more valuable under a faster, more structured plan-making process, where timetables and steps must be explicit and kept up to date.  

What is a “fully digital plan” anyway? Standards, templates, and the fear of betting wrong 

A recurring theme was confusion over what constitutes a “fully digital plan.” There’s appetite for digital-first plan-making, but also caution about investing in tools ahead of standards.  

This is why the broader ecosystem matters. The PAS/LGA work on digital local plans emphasises that the future is standardised, interactive, map-based plans, designed so users can access what they need easily. (Local Government Association) 

Meanwhile, the MHCLG Digital Planning programme is actively working on foundations for faster plan-making, explicitly calling out how plans have often taken many years and become long, inaccessible documents. (MHCLG Digital) 

Two practical worries often come up: 

  • inclusion: will digital-first engagement disadvantage people who are less digitally confident?
  • volume: will automated objection tools flood consultation processes?  

Jessica Oates, Planning Lead at Objective, explains: 
“Integration. I think as an industry, as a tech industry, we need to do better at being able to make sure that we can integrate our products. That comes back to data standardisation, and that's because we don't want to limit you with what you're using. But, for example, if we can integrate your GIS, your live GIS system, into ours, then you have two systems that are talking to each other. That flow of data is easy for the planners to be able to make decisions and feed that back into the plan.” 

Those are policy and design questions, not reasons to avoid digital. The solution is thoughtful service design: multiple engagement routes, clear guidance, and tooling that supports participation without turning consultation into noise. 

A closing message for Planning Teams 

The best teams are those where digital and policy expertise are fully integrated. The councils that will thrive are the ones treating digital as part of their planning DNA, not an add-on. And the good news is the building blocks already exist. It’s about connecting the people, processes, and platforms to make them work together. 

As Jessica summarised ‘Speeding up plan-making isn’t about working faster - it’s about removing the friction that slows planners down.’ 

If you’re feeling the pressure of delivering a Local Plan within 30 months, please come and talk to us. Whether you just need a sounding board or want to explore how we can genuinely support your team, we’re here to help. 

Let’s keep talking, sharing insights, and learning from each other as a planning community. We’ll be continuing our webinar series in the new year focused on Call for Sites and Site Assessment - register here if you haven’t already. You are not alone in this.