UK to use AI to slash construction planning delays
The UK government will use an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to digitise planning documents, reducing planning delays and helping build 1.5 million homes.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer launched 'Extract', an AI assistant for planning officers and local councils, developed with support from Google, the government said in a press statement.
'With Extract, we are harnessing the power of AI to help planning officers cut red tape, speed up decisions, and unlock the new homes for hard-working people as part of our Plan for Change,' he told the London Tech Week.
The AI tool will support the government's efforts to digitise the planning system, building on an estimated £59.4 million per year spent by councils on digital planning and housing software.
The move is expected to deliver an estimated £527 million ($711 million) in annual time and cost savings for the public sector.
The government will expand the AI tool to handle all planning documents, supporting local authorities by the end of 2026, the statement said.
(Writing by P Deol; Editing by Anoop Menon)
(anoop.menon@lseg.com)
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The National
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- The National
Will France recognise Palestinian statehood at UN conference next week?
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Recognising a Palestinian state without Israel's involvement is 'not a big deal', he said. 'It is a gesture which I don't denounce … but the big deal should be for the Europeans and other leaders to come to the region, meet with Netanyahu, meet with Abu Mazen, talk with them very seriously about what can be done and … this is not what is happening.' In an open letter to Mr Macron, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a group of former senior UN diplomats called The Elders, urged world leaders to 'fulfil their stated commitment to recognise the State of Palestine without condition or delay'. 'Israel does not have the right to veto Palestinian self-determination or statehood,' they said. 'Nor should recognition be linked to governance reform, or the form that a sovereign, unified Palestinian state will take. These are separate issues from statehood itself.' 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But whatever one thinks about Trump's "America First" strategy, that formula seems to be working best overseas. Germany's dramatic fiscal reboot this year, which was catalyzed by both Trumpism and far-right populism at home, also speaks to the new globalization theme. Europe at large now appears to be prioritizing investment in its own industrial base, security, digital infrastructure and green technologies - hoping to unleash both under-utilized savings at home and attract capital from Wall Street. Britain is apeing these industrial and defence policy trends, while Japan is attempting to unlock its domestic pension savings too. Meanwhile, Chinese fiscal stimulus has also risen. So while trade war jitters abound, it sets up potentially synched fiscal boosts next year. TS Lombard's Rory Green and Alexandros Xenofontos pointed out on Monday there could be strong fiscal stimuli in Europe, China and possibly the U.S. in 2026 - a trifecta that's only happened twice in 30 years, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. That possibility goes some way to explain why, despite all the market volatility and hype surrounding a U.S. cyclical slowdown, global stock markets are once again hitting record highs. It also explains why it's been a bad year for global sovereign bonds and the U.S. dollar - as stimulus requires more borrowing and foreign investors shed overweight U.S. holdings. Even though Wall Street stocks are just about positive for the year, they are underperforming the likes of equity indexes in Germany and Hong Kong by 25%-40%. 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In an article for the Council on Foreign Relations' Foreign Affairs magazine titled "Tell Me How This Trade War Ends," Emily Kilcrease and Geoffrey Gertz reckon that despite all the Trump chaos, there is a "kernel of truth" in his insistence that the world trade system needs a re-set. They conclude there is no going back to a world where the U.S. championed ever freer trade. Neither is it inevitable that the world will retreat into outright protectionism, as long as Trump pushes other U.S. allies into a new, less-lopsided trading framework. "Trump's shock to the system may not be pretty. But it could open the way for a much better system," Kilcrease and Gertz wrote. "Trump has turned the United States into a revisionist power seeking to shatter what remains of the economic order. Thus far, his approach has been needlessly chaotic," they said. "But there is still an opportunity to wrest a positive outcome from the current tumult." At nearly the mid-point of the year, investors seem tempted by this "glass half full" view of 2025's disruption. The optimists are trying to see through the inevitable twists and turns ahead to focus on the possibility of a new, more positive equilibrium down the line. In truth, much remains murky and unknowable at this point. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters. (by Mike Dolan; editing by Anna Szymanski and Paul Simao)
