What is the future of planning in a world of both AI and planning committees?
This article is inspired by the fantastic article by Stacey Robins and Nicola Gooch that you can find here.
Their article is an excellent insight and recommendation set for officers and councils about how to mitigate the issues raised by the expected dramatic increase in AI generated objections.
This article is about what does this same phenomenon mean for applicants, specifically in the political coliseum of the Planning Committee, which by its very nature is influenced by politics as much as policy.
AI objections will change political behaviour for the worse.
Stacey and Nicola’s piece focuses on the volume, speed and occasional inaccuracy in AI generated representations. That is the pressure officers feel first, and their proposed solutions seem sensible.
But the bigger strategic shift from the perspective of applicants is political. It is a very reasonable assumption that AI representations will influence how councillors perceive public sentiment and thus how they vote.
Officers can identify AI originated objections, categorise and use their expertise to put them in context, but it’s not realistic to assume officers will have the resource to review all Planning Committee member’s inboxes to lend their expertise. So, we still have a situation where Councillors will have to navigate with no officer filter and no committee report to anchor the debate.
These objections can be more effective than traditional opposition, we have already seen AI drafted messages framed “you have a duty to refuse”, “this is unlawful”, “case law says”, “you will be personally liable”. Even when technically wrong, the volume and confidence of the language can create a political signal that feels more passionate.
There is also a numbers element. A small group or lone neighbour can now produce a constant stream of highly polished emails, social posts and briefings that look authoritative and urgent. That content can be produced in seconds for multiple channels such as local forums and whatsapp groups, so councillors experience opposition as both wider and more persistent than it really is.
AI also removes friction for the “soft objector”. Many residents who might previously have done nothing, because they can’t be bothered to spend the time, can now generate a policy-based objection in minutes. That shifts the baseline. Applicants should expect more people to participate, not necessarily because views have hardened, but because participation is cheaper.
This all matters because councillors do not experience resident messages as an academic sample, they experience them as an inbox. And in politics, volume is often synonymous with salience.
When inboxes are full, many councillors will feel they must be seen to act, which increases the temptation to “go down fighting” even where an appeal is likely, because the political cost of approval feels immediate and personal.
How do we counteract this?
Pre-bunk misinformation. Issue a short “facts and myths” note early, written in plain English, with links to the application documents and clear distinctions between planning and non-planning issues.
Make it easy to be confidently pro-solution. Councillors approve when they can explain why. Give them a narrative that is locally grounded and defensible: design response, highways evidence, deliverable mitigation, and community benefits that are credible and proportionate.
Monitor the narrative to spot emerging misinformation. Track the themes appearing to both your own consultation and the Council’s. Respond to the themes, not to the specifics. If a false claim is spreading, correct it once, publicly, calmly, and with evidence. Debunking a single response as AI will not convince others you are right.
Give members a safe briefing format ahead of committee that they can keep. Provide a one-page, neutral tone councillor briefing: what is proposed, what mitigation is offered, what is likely to be secured by condition, and what is being preserved. Keep it quotable and let councillors use it as a shield when they have to defend votes to approve.
Do not play the same game. Astroturfing, fake identities, or mass AI generated support is a reputational trap. If it is exposed, it gives councillors a reason to distrust everything else you say. Applicants are held to a far higher standard than opponents, even organised ones. Your supporters have to be real and won through good community relations.
AI will not remove politics from planning. It will accelerate it. The schemes that secure consent will be the ones that reduce uncertainty for decision makers, communicate correctly with the public at the outset to lower the temperature, and make it easier for councillors to feel that approval is safe.
If you have a site where you are concerned that AI is going to change the political calculus for the councillors, the best solution is having a team of current and former councillors on your side who have the same lived experience as your planning committee, because they will be the only people who can cut through the noise.