A collaboration between Ordnance Survey and the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG) Digital Planning Programme has culminated in the launch of a new £1.2 million PropTech Innovation Challenge, which will directly support the government’s mission to build 1.5 homes this Parliament.
Geovation, an Ordnance Survey initiative, will increase the scope of the Digital Planning Programme’s current PropTech Innovation Fund, and will strategise where housing delivery could be benefited from innovative technology.
Founded in 2021, the PropTech Innovation Fund is the UK government’s largest PropTech, which has so far delivered 114 pilot projects across 77 local planning authorities (LPAs), in partnership with more than 50 PropTech companies. Already, it has accelerated processes like community engagement, 3D mapping and digital twins, biodiversity net gain, cross-district planning and site assessment. The fund has facilitated LPAs to work at pace and scale with industry, harnessing the UK’s thriving PropTech sector.
Geovation, an OS initiative in association with HM Land Registry, has supported over 150 startups and helped to raise over £155 million in funding, solving local and global problems through the innovation use of location data.
This new PropTech Innovation Challenge will test and validate how PropTech can serve as a catalyst in supporting the government’s home-building target through digital and scalable solutions, such as increasing the wider market adoption of PropTech, supporting investment in advanced technologies that improve access to planning, land, and housing data, as well as showcasing innovative solutions that demonstrate benefits and value for government and the wider industry.
The PropTech Innovation Challenge is now open for applicants to register their interest and will run as a 12-month programme. Through collaboration with policy colleagues, a series of challenge propositions will be identified and developed, focusing on a maximum of five priority problem statements. By unlocking and optimising existing data and processes, the challenge aims to make it easier to deliver high quality new homes.
Milan Bogunovic, digital planning programme director at MHCLG, said: “By leveraging both the PropTech Innovation Fund and the Geovation Innovation Services, we are bringing together stakeholders from local government, the development industry, academia and the tech sector to incorporate the broadest possible range of user needs and insights. Our ultimate goal is to develop robust, scalable solutions, which will help deliver the government’s target of 1.5 million new homes, while creating a thriving supply-side ecosystem for PropTech, that will continue to grow for many years to come.”
The £1.2 million fund will support up to 12 PropTech projects, with no restriction on the size, scale or remit for successful companies; as long as they are registered in the UK.
