AI helps council fast-track housing plan

'Mammoth task' becomes manageable

Artificial intelligence has been harnessed by a East Devon council to read more than 1.1 million words of feedback over the prospective development of nearly 21,000 homes.

Comments by residents – which combined are twice the length of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace – relate to a significant strategy that will decide how many homes will be built in East Devon out to 2042 and, crucially, where they will be located.

East Devon District Council put its draft local plan, which it is required to create under government legislation, out for consultation earlier this year, and now it is reviewing the more than 3,500 responses from residents.

A report prepared for the council’s strategic planning committee, which is due to meet next week to discuss the feedback, revealed that artificial intelligence – or AI – had been employed to assess comments from members of the public.

“We received 1.1 million words in feedback on the consultation,” the report states.

“It is highlighted that we have used artificial intelligence software (CoPilot) to summarise the comments received, noting it would be a mammoth task to undertake in the absence of use of such technology, and not using the technology would delay feeding back by several weeks.

“Use of such software also ensures a more consistent approach to, and balance in, feedback reporting.”

The council noted that while officers have undertaken “substantial checks” on the outputs from the AI tool, “further review is still required due to the scale of the task and the known limitations of AI tools”.

Significant amounts of work are still required to get the draft local plan over the line, with a second round of public consultation starting in October and running into November.

Officers are tentatively predicting that the full council could approve the final draft in April next year, with the plan coming into effect in 2027.

The council is aiming for an annual housing target of 850 per year between now and 2031/32, rising to 1,070 per year from then until 2042.

It’s hoping only to need to deliver 20,909 homes during the period of the plan, which technically covers from 2020 even though it is only being consulted on now.

That’s because the new local plan will replace the existing one that runs from 2013-2031.

Some residents raised concerns that the council was being too overreliant on the delivery of a second new town, which will have around 3,300 homes within the life of the draft local plan, but is expected to grow to around 8,000 homes eventually.

That new town is due to be located south of Exeter Airport and north of Clyst St Mary.