INDUSTRY BUILD. TECH

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The findings come as the government confirms plans for seven new towns across England as part of its largest housebuilding program in more than 50 years. Each development is expected to deliver thousands of homes alongside infrastructure and services, forming a central pillar of the government’ s ambition to build 1.5 million homes by 2029.

Published alongside this milestone, Autodesk’ s Planning for Delivery report sets out how a more connected, digital planning system could help ensure these large-scale developments are delivered with greater certainty, coordination and public trust.

The report, submitted to the UK government’ s New Towns Taskforce, argues that the current planning system remains fragmented and largely analog, with data spread across organizations and key issues often identified too late in the process. This lack of co-ordination can introduce risk, delay decision-making and increase costs across major developments.

With planning delays, supply chain issues and increasing project complexity threatening delivery, Autodesk is urging policymakers to adopt connected digital planning systems to enable faster, more transparent and more co-ordinated deployment at scale.

Digitizing the planning process could support delivery by improving certainty in planning outcomes through earlier identification of risks, strengthening co-ordination across stakeholders, enhancing transparency for communities and enabling more consistent delivery across multiple projects.

Key recommendations from the report include establishing a national baseline for a shared digital planning system, embedding collaborative digital workflows in new town delivery and working with private industry to support planners with tools and training. Economic projections in the report show that applying modern digital planning tools could reduce the design phase from nearly a year to weeks, while cutting design iteration costs by around 60 – 70 %.

Mike Reader, MP and Chair of the Infrastructure APPG, said:“ New towns offer us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do things differently. We can take a joined-up approach from day one, aligning housing with energy, water, transport and digital infrastructure, whilst making full use of modern methods of construction. That’ s how we build at scale, at pace and with place in mind. I welcome this report’ s focus on how government can support that mission.” • www. intelligentcio. com

INTELLIGENT CIO NORTH AMERICA

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