Wirral reduces site assessment time by more than 50%

Wirral reduces site assessment time by more than 50%
Wirral Borough Council piloted a digital site assessment tool to reduce assessment time and support local plan work.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Wirral Borough Council tested a digital approach to assessing potential development sites to support plan-making, viability and feasibility work as part of its emerging local plan and brownfield-first strategy.
- Outcome: Reduced site assessment time by more than 50%, cutting the time needed to assess each site during the pilot.
- Technology used: PlaceMaker, a digital local plan platform used to assess development sites and manage site information.
This was a PropTech Innovation Fund round 4 pilot (2024) and describes what was tested at the time.
The planning challenge
Wirral wanted to improve how it identified and assessed potential sites to support housing delivery through its local plan. Many sites faced viability, coordination and delivery challenges.
Several systems stored site information separately, making it difficult to bring information together.
The council wanted to:
- bring site information from multiple systems into one place
- reduce the time spent combining data from different sources
The council wanted to test whether a more efficient, joined-up approach could reduce the time needed to assess sites, improve access to site data and support better data sharing across teams.
What they did
The pilot focused on bringing together site information that multiple systems previously held to support faster, more consistent site assessment.
Bringing site information into one place
The council implemented PlaceMaker, a local plan platform, to consolidate site data that the team previously managed across several tools.
This allowed officers to:
- bring together information from different systems
- view site data in a single place
- update site information more easily
- share site data across planning, housing, regeneration and asset management teams
By bringing data into one platform, the council reduced duplicated work, removed licensing barriers and made it easier for officers to access and use site information.
Mapped site boundaries and assessment data helped officers access sites quickly and consistently.
Assessing sites more efficiently
Using PlaceMaker, officers piloted assessing sites against a consistent set of criteria.
The platform supported:
- faster desk-based site assessment
- creation of site information for plan-making
- feasibility testing across a large number of sites
This meant officers could spend more time reviewing assessment results and applying professional judgement, instead of manually bringing together information from multiple sources.
Officer review and professional judgement
Throughout the pilot, planning officers reviewed site assessment outputs. Officers used digital tools to support decision making, not replace it. Professional judgement was still essential when considering site constraints, viability and delivery issues.
Results and impact
At a glance:
- over 800 sites assessed
- site assessment time reduced by more than 50% during the pilot
Reducing time spent assessing sites
By bringing site information together and supporting desk-based assessment, the pilot reduced the average time needed to assess sites by more than 50%.
The council used the PlaceMaker platform to assess over 800 sites during the pilot period.
Improving access to site information
Before the pilot, software licences limited access to site data, with only a small number of officers able to use important datasets.
The digital approach enabled wider internal access through a single sign-on, making site information easier to access and share across teams.
Supporting evidence for plan-making
Using the digital platform, the council piloted the assessment of over 800 sites more efficiently than under previous approaches.
The pilot showed how digital site assessment can improve consistency, reduce officer time and allow assessment outputs to be reused across planning, regeneration and housing delivery activities.
What they learned
Wirral found that:
- bringing site information into a single digital system could significantly reduce the time needed for site assessment
- consolidating data improved access to site information across teams and reduced duplication
- digital site assessment could support faster evidence preparation when assessing large numbers of sites
- teams can more easily update and reuse feasibility information when they hold it digitally
- digital tools support decision making but do not replace professional judgement
The pilot also highlighted the importance of data quality and governance when bringing together information from multiple existing systems.
Future plans
The council plans to continue using a digital approach to support site assessment, viability testing and evidence preparation.
The pilot will inform the development of its next Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (HELAA), including updating site information as new evidence becomes available and reusing assessment outputs across different stages of plan-making and housing delivery.
Wirral is also exploring how this approach could support closer working between planning, housing and regeneration teams, while maintaining professional judgement in site decisions.
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Useful resources
Explore tools and suppliers on the Digital Planning Directory.
Read guidance on site identification and assessment using digital tools.
Explore the Open Digital Planning community.
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