Britain Spends Billions on Building Planning Permissions Each Year — AICHITECT's Beta Launch Is Slashing the Cost

This year, municipalities in England will fall short by approx. 50% (or £600 million) to pay the £1.2 billion it costs to run its local planning authorities. If we cut the entire planning authority budget across England, several hundred thousand construction projects would and could not take place each year. The 336,000 planning applications submitted by homeowners and property developers this year would fall upon deaf ears.

Another problem is the time these property owners and developers wait to get answers back from planning authorities, which stalls projects. This means that hundreds of thousands of construction jobs and potentially billions of pounds in economic benefits that these completed projects can bring are stalled by months to even years. To add to that, last year, municipalities in England doubled the prices homeowners pay to submit applications, while increasing costs by 30% for large-scale property developers. While the housing shortage in the UK continues, property developers are allocated over 3% of their project costs to planning consultants in order to navigate the labyrinths of English building planning policies. All of this, between application fees, unfunded planning authority costs, consultant fees and, of course, lawyer fees, balloons into £2–3 billion across the UK. In many developed countries, this industry is a tiny fraction of the size it is in the UK (in the US, for example). Though, the UK can and does benefit in many ways from the heritage and living standard benefits that can emerge from this industry.

Enter AICHITECT. Today, we’re officially launching the Planning Prediction Dashboard. This tool allows homeowners, architects, planning consultants and property developers to make sure they have all the necessary documents in place when submitting applications to planning authorities (usually ranging from 5–30 documents, depending on the size of the project). Additionally, the Planning Prediction Portal allows users to get predictions of planning application outcomes with more than 97% certainty.

Let’s do a quick walk-through of the features, starting with Alfred, your AI-based planning consultant who can help you navigate the site, answer planning policy-related questions, recommend pricing for various reports, as well as architectural tips for passing planning authority phases. Alfred is continuously fine-tuned by the visionary CEO and chartered architect at AICHITECT, David Adjei.

When you enter the Dashboard, you currently have two options.

You can select “Am I ready for planning?” which takes you to the AI Checklist Chat (screenhot below)

Once you check off the type of work you’re seeking planning permission for, you can chat and upload your files associated with your planning application in this AI Checklist Chat. Additionally, you can manage all of your project checklists by navigating along the sidebar as shown in the screenshot above. From this page, or by directly clicking the “Ready to Submit” button on the Dashboard 2-option menu, you can enter the Planning Prediction Portal.

Here, you can upload your files that you compiled during your checklist or that you already had available prior. Simply click “Predict Result” after uploading, and minutes later, you are able to see whether an application will be Likely Approved or Likely Rejected. Premium users can also get access to full reports which explain why the application will fail and suggest methods on how to fix those applications. The best part is that if AICHITECT is wrong in its prediction, you can expect a no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.

We are excited about sharing this new tool with the world. We have spent much of 2025 working with the latest AI-based tooling, attending local planning authority committee meetings, speaking with stakeholders across the industry, and developing our legal research and software development teams to finally release this product. While it’s still in beta, both the legal research and software development teams have done a fantastic job to deliver a simple and user-friendly tool that we believe can address many of the problems discussed earlier in this article. From lowering planning consultation costs for homeowners, to speeding up approval of major projects that stand to bring billions in benefits to the English economy, to finally lowering burdens on overworked planning authority staff, AICHITECT is pushing the envelope in boosting architectural and planning productivity.

Stay tuned for more updates on new features and tooling coming soon!

---