Case studies

Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council is transforming how residents and businesses interact with its planning service.  

In 2024, Calderdale completed the HMLR Local Land Charges Project, cleansing over 88,000 land charges. The experience helped the team recognise the need to address their planning data.  

In January 2025, the West Yorkshire authority applied to the Digital Planning Improvement Fund and joined Open Digital Planning (ODP) to improve and publish their planning data and create a more user-friendly planning service for its 211,000 residents. 

Tewkesbury Borough Council has transformed how residents and other applicants access planning services by launching four complementary PlanX services, creating a digital-first approach that addresses the complexity of planning and allows officers to spend more time on higher-impact work. 

Westminster City Council manages one of England’s highest concentrations of listed buildings. Before making their data available on the Planning Data platform it was working with 70-year-old records, some with poor scan quality, scattered across multiple legacy systems. The application support team was stretched thin across departments, making coordination nearly impossible. 

East Cambridgeshire District Council is revolutionising its planning services through the Open Digital Planning (ODP) community and MHCLG Digital Planning Improvement Fund. This case study highlights how a systematic approach following a Digital Planning Maturity Assessment led to significant operational improvements, enhanced data management, and better public services.

Barnet Council’s ‘Report a Planning Breach’ service was developed to make it easier for residents to report potential planning breaches while ensuring that council officers receive clear and relevant information to take action more efficiently.