Waltham Forest Council High Tech Approach to Housing

Waltham Forest Council may use geospatial intelligence to accelerate the building of new housing.

19:17 23 February 2021

Waltham Forest Council is exploring various ways using innovative technology to track the progress of housing projects. In 2019, it launched a competition which was eventually participated by five companies tasked to explore the use of sophisticated mapping to accelerate the building of new housing.

 

The five companies were awarded £50,000 each to find the best possible solution between December 2019 to April 2020. Two of the companies will go onto the next phase, which will last a year, and will receive an additional £500,000 each. 

 

A report prepared for the cabinet explains the council wants to replace “the resource intensive manual methods” it uses now.

 

“Currently, developers engage at 26 different points with (the council), often providing the same data at each point, and making it hard to identify where council processes may be causing barriers to the progress of delivering new homes.

 

“There is huge potential for a reduction in costs for developers and the council in the future through better understanding “process pain points” and being better able to streamline processes.

 

“An improved developer journey in Waltham Forest also has the potential to promote increased investment by the developer community.”