The number of planning applications for new homes in England is at its highest level for four years, new data shared with BBC Verify suggests. Applications for 335,000 homes outside London were lodged in 2025, up by 60% on 2024, according to Planning Portal, the service people use to request permission. But there are warnings that more needs to be done to meet Labour's target of building 1.5 million homes by 2029, as separate government data released on Thursday suggests there has been a decrease in house building. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it had overhauled the planning system and removed long-standing barriers that have held back housebuilding. The increase in planning applications for new homes in England follows controversial reforms introduced by Labour, which allow development on some lower-quality green belt land, known as grey belt .

One leading planning lawyer warned such AI services could'supercharge nimbyism'. One leading planning lawyer warned such AI services could'supercharge nimbyism'. Tools that help people scan applications and find grounds for objection have potential to hit government's housebuilding plans The government's plan to use artificial intelligence to accelerate planning for new homes may be about to hit an unexpected roadblock: AI-powered nimbyism. A new service called Objector is offering "policy-backed objections in minutes" to people who are upset about planning applications near their homes. It uses generative AI to scan planning applications and check for grounds for objection, ranking these as "high", "medium" or "low" impact. It then automatically creates objection letters, AI-written speeches to deliver to the planning committees, and even AI-generated videos to "influence councillors".

Google declined to comment on its planning application for the Thurrock site. Google declined to comment on its planning application for the Thurrock site. Planning documents show impact of Thurrock'hyperscale' unit as UK attempts to ramp up AI capacity A new Google datacentre in Essex is expected to emit more than half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to about 500 short-haul flights a week, planning documents show. Spread across 52 hectares (128 acres), the Thurrock "hyperscale datacentre" will be part of a wave of mammoth computer and AI power houses if it secures planning consent. The plans were submitted by a subsidiary of Google's parent company, Alphabet, and the carbon impact emerged before a concerted push by Donald Trump's White House and Downing Street to ramp up AI capacity in Britain. Multibillion-dollar investment deals with some of Silicon Valley's biggest technology companies are expected to be announced during the US president's state visit to the UK, which starts on Tuesday.

Many large enterprises use one form or another of a supply chain application to help manage their supply chains. Supply chain vendors have been touting their investments in artificial intelligence (AI) for the last several years. Alex Pradhan, Product Strategy Leader John Galt Solutions, told me that "all planning vendors have bold marketing around AI." But the trick is to find suppliers with "field-proven AI/ML algorithms" that "have been delivered at scale." Further, while artificial intelligence helps solve certain types of problems, Jay Muelhoefer - the chief marketing officer at Kinaxis pointed out - optimization and heuristics work better for other types of planning problems. This article, which is focused on the different types of artificial intelligence used and the types of problems they are solving, is aimed at helping practitioners cut through the hype.

Machine learning has been successfully applied to demand planning, but leading suppliers of supply chain planning are beginning to work on using machine learning to improve production planning. But architecturally and culturally, this is a much tougher problem than machine learning applied to demand planning. In the $2 billion-plus supply chain planning market, ARC Advisory Group's latest market study shows production planning as being a critical application SCP solution representing over 25 percent of the total market. Production planning applications are used for both planning daily production at a factory to creating weekly or monthly plans to divvy up the production tasks that need to be accomplished across multiple factories. Machine learning is a form of continuous improvement.