A new PlaceMaker tool has been used in a trial run by Durham County Council, and found that the time needed to assess sites was reduced by 50%
The digital construction site assessment tool also saved an estimated £10,403 in annual operational costs.
PlaceMaker is a local plan platform that can assess development sites and manage site information.
The pilot was conducted in 2024
This test was a part of a PropTech Innovation Fund round, and the test area was chosen as improvement in assessment time was very much needed.
The council’s objectives were:
- Reduce the time and cost of assessing a large number of sites
- Standardise assessment criteria and scoring across the authority
- Reduce reliance on manual processes and spreadsheets
- Improve transparency and consistency in decision-making
- Create an approach that could be reused and scaled
Before the introduction of PlaceMaker, site assessments required multiple teams, tools, and handovers, with reliance on geographic information system (GIS) analysis, research, and manual data entry in spreadsheets and documents.
As a result, PlaceMaker was introduced in this pilot to replace the spreadsheet and manual processes used in assessment. The Strategic Housing Land Acailability Assessment was moved onto the platform, and a standardised Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment database structure was built to be shared with other councils that will use PlaceMaker.
The platform was effective
The platform was used to:
- Assess potential sites using a shared set of criteria
- Record assessment information in a consistent digital format
- Update assessments as evidence or assumptions changed
- Reuse assessment data instead of recreating it at each stage
The results speak for themselves, as assessment time was halved, being consolidated into a single digital workflow, and the reliance on spreadsheets and manual data handling was vastly reduced.
Duplication between team and systems was also reduced, parts of the data handling and workflows were automated, which in turn reduced the need for manual updates and freed up assessment officers’ time.
Costs were cut by an estimated £10,403 via reduced time spent by officers on assessment tasks, less reliance on GIS, and reduced frequency of handovers between teams and tools.
Durham County Council found that:
- Standardising assessment criteria and workflows made the process more efficient and easier to repeat
- The biggest time savings came from reducing manual data handling and duplication
- Upfront configuration and testing is essential to build trust in outputs
- Structuring assessments digitally makes them easier to update and reuse as evidence changes
- Digital tools work best when they support professional judgement rather than replacing it
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