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The new AI-powered planning tool, Extract, is available to all local planning authorities in England, enabling them to digitise planning documents such as conservation areas, Article 4 drections, and tree preservation orders
Developed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) Digital Planning Programme in partnership with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (i.AI), Extract converts scanned PDFs and archived documents into structured, standardised data. The tool, which was soft-launched at an Open Digital Planning event in Liverpool, has already processed over 1,000 documents in its first few weeks.
Andrew Powell, local plan coordinator at Stoke-on-Trent City Council, said: “The data we asked it to extract was 100% accurate. It’s simple to use, does exactly what it promises, and has the potential to save significant resources.”
Extract is designed to reduce the time planning officers spend manually digitising documents from up to two hours to around two minutes. Users review and correct the tool’s outputs before exporting them into standardised formats. In around two-thirds of cases, only minor edits were needed before the data was ready to use.
Rachel Fisher, chief executive of the Royal Town Planning Institute, said: “‘Extract’ will be a refreshing update to a local planning authority’s toolbox, which can sometimes feel out of date and unfit for purpose in today’s digital landscape.”
Local planning authorities can access Extract using their GOV.UK email address.
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