By Harry Atkinson, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer at Sensat
Recently, the UK Government announced that nearly 100,000 new homes on large developments previously stuck in the planning system would be supported to progress more quickly via its New Homes Accelerator initiative.
Delivering housing at this scale is not just about building homes. Each development requires the right infrastructure, and it’s often the complexity of coordinating this infrastructure that can create significant challenges during the planning process.
The programme seeks to address key challenges that hinder development on numerous large consented sites across the country by leveraging the resources and expertise available to the Government and its housing and regeneration agency, Homes England. By working closely with arms-length bodies and other departments to streamline progress through the planning process, the Government aims to remove time-consuming ‘blockages’ in the system.
This accelerated process aims to help more people on the housing ladder, while tackling the housing crisis and boosting local economic growth. However, infrastructure planning is a complex activity, with lots of potentially crucial mistakes. The injection of accelerated speed into that process increases the likelihood of such errors, any of which could seriously impact the profitability of a project for the players involved.
Preventing potential project risks
With the vast majority of the accelerated projects being focused in or around major cities, project planners need to be aware of the multiple considerations that could affect their projects.
In the first place, increased urbanisation and a potential crowding of buildings in towns and cities pose several risks. For example, it is obviously helpful for project planners to be aware of factors such as the location of water mains, to ensure that they avoid building in areas where future problems may arise.
Likewise, project planners need to be aware of any other planned activity in the area that could overlap with their own in some way and impact the progress of the build. With fast-track planning now being actively encouraged by the Government, the potential for such clashes has increased dramatically.
To provide an illustrative example, imagine one planner fast-tracking the building of a new housing development, while a separate planner is racing to deliver a much-needed busway for the same community. If those two planners are working in silos, the outcome could be a housing project with a busway running through its centre.
A more likely scenario is that, in the clamour to deliver on the Government’s house-building promises, environmental concerns could be overlooked at the planning stage, e.g. protected trees or wildlife habitats, which could later significantly delay projects or derail them completely.
So, with the Government emphasising a need for speed, how can infrastructure planners lay the foundations for smarter decisions, spot potential overlaps in a timely way and avoid costly hold-ups?
Geospatial technology meets AI
Geospatial technology provides a robust foundation for this shift. It enables planners to visualise, analyse, and interpret complex data about land, assets, and environmental conditions. By integrating these insights into project planning and decision-making, potential risks can be identified earlier in the project.
This technology is now underpinning the creation of digital twins for leading construction, engineering, and infrastructure projects. Digital twins, now widely used in construction, energy, and logistics, are evolving from static replicas into dynamic systems. By integrating real-time data from sensors and satellites, AI-driven digital twins can simulate scenarios such as energy consumption, traffic flow, or structural integrity under extreme weather conditions. These systems become predictive tools, offering actionable insights beyond simple monitoring.
Generative AI transforms design processes by generating layouts and scenarios with remarkable speed and accuracy. Urban planners can input constraints such as population density or environmental impact, and the model can suggest ideal city layouts or transport networks. Similarly, ecological simulations can predict the effects of infrastructure projects, enabling sustainable decision-making. This approach enables iterative planning and the rapid evaluation of multiple scenarios.
Massive 3D models of real-world environments are becoming increasingly standard, but the need for manual inspection often limits their usability. Modern geospatial technology makes these models fully searchable and actionable. For instance, an engineer could locate specific bridges within a floodplain, or a manager could identify traffic hotspots that overlap with delivery routes.
Building a smarter future
As digital-first solutions continue to redefine how infrastructure is designed and delivered, geospatial technology is emerging as a critical enabler of more innovative and resilient construction.
Composed of multiple layers of rich data, digital twins help businesses to digitally visualise projects and assets for planning, construction and management processes, reducing costs, risks and delays. This, in turn, helps to optimise resource allocation and streamline collaboration across teams, while staying within budget.
To those in the engineering and infrastructure industries, geospatial AI technology offers a way to meet the UK Government’s demand for speed while safeguarding themselves against unforeseen delays and unexpected costs.
Read next: A ‘fragile but stabilising’ UK construction sector – Build in Digital
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