Hounslow and Chesterfield cut response processing time by 45%
Hounslow and Chesterfield tested software to manage consultation responses, cutting processing time by 45% and improving consistency across planning teams.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
London Borough of Hounslow and Chesterfield Borough Council worked together on a joint pilot to test new digital tools for managing consultation responses.
- Outcome: Hounslow reduced the time and cost of processing responses and improved consistency across consultations. This freed up officer time for engagement and plan making.
- Technology used: Response management features developed within the existing PlaceMaker platform to process, tag and manage consultation responses.
This was a PropTech Innovation Fund round 3 pilot (2023 to 2024) and describes what was tested at the time.
The planning challenge
Local plan consultations can generate large volumes of responses in multiple formats, including emails, PDFs, documents and portal submissions. Officers often spend weeks copying comments into spreadsheets, splitting long submissions into topics, assigning work to colleagues and drafting consistent replies. This slows the consultation process and limits the time available for community engagement and plan making.
Hounslow and Chesterfield wanted to:
- reduce the time spent processing responses
- improve consistency and transparency when managing comments across consultations
- give officers clearer tools for tagging, assigning and analysing responses
- link representations directly to sites and evidence files
- build a system that could be reused for future consultations and integrated with their existing sites database
What they did
The councils worked together to design and test new consultation response management software within the PlaceMaker platform.
To develop the tool, they:
- worked with Urban Intelligence to map the end-to-end process for handling consultation comments
- identified pain points such as copying comments manually, splitting long representations into topics and maintaining consistency across consultations
- refined the scope with support from service designers, focusing on handling representations and preparing consultation statements
- ran weekly design and development sessions with the supplier to iterate quickly
- tested functionality during Hounslow’s live consultation on a supplementary planning document (SPD), with Chesterfield carrying out early testing ahead of its local plan consultation
The new features developed through the pilot included:
- processing responses received in multiple formats
- automatically splitting long responses into sub-representations
- tagging comments by theme, policy or site
- assigning topics to individual officers
- applying shared response templates
- attaching GIS (geographic information system) layers and site information to comments
- creating a single database of representations across consultations
This gave officers access to more information in one place and reduced manual processing.
Results and impact
The pilot led to measurable improvements in efficiency and consistency. Hounslow found that:
- processing time fell from 55 minutes per comment to 30 minutes
- the new features cut officer time spent tagging and categorising comments by 45%
- shared templates improved consistency across teams
- linking GIS layers and site information to comments gave officers better context
- the shared contact database could be reused for later consultations
- officers could assign topics and track work in one place, improving coordination
What they learned
The councils found that:
- using digital tools can significantly reduce the time spent processing representations
- summarising and tagging comments still requires officer judgement, although some tasks could be automated further in future
- frequent collaboration with suppliers supports faster iteration
- a single database of responses improves consistency and makes it easier to compare feedback across consultations
- defining scope early is important, as initial plans were too broad
- user experience and interface design support helped translate officer needs into workable features
Future plans
Both councils intend to use the new system for future consultations and explore additional automation, including AI-assisted tagging and summarising. They also plan to refine how responses are fed directly into the tool through integrated consultation modules, reducing the need to copy and split responses manually. Chesterfield will complete live testing during its next consultation. The councils are exploring whether this functionality could support other planning tasks and wider council services.
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Useful resources
Explore tools and suppliers on the Digital Planning Directory.
Use the Digital community engagement toolkit for planning consultations.
Read guidance on using community engagement platforms in planning consultations.
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