How better handling of data can drive innovation in planning

Yet, despite the planning process itself generating vast amounts of data (directly and indirectly), technological innovation in the profession continues to lag behind. This lag might be because of the long legacy of planning's approach to filing, holding, and sharing its knowledge. Planning's greatest obstacle to digital innovation with data is just how much information is hard to access within a painfully analogue system. Future Cities Catapult's Digital Planning programme shows how new technologies that have revolutionised finance, medicine and education industries might also benefit planning. Take decision notices: Richly detailed, the information these documents hold – critical pieces of data that are relevant for the lifespan of developments – is too frequently lost to non-machine readable PDF filing.