Digital Planning Directory Online Show & Tell: Milton Keynes City Council, 13th November 2025
A one-hour session showcasing Milton Keynes City Council’s digital planning journey and MHCLG Open Digital Planning programme.
Digital Planning Directory Online Show & Tell: The Digital Planning Journey of Milton Keynes City Council, 13th November 2025
Milton Keynes as a place has positioned itself as a Smart City and test bed for innovation. The Planning Service at the City Council has taken this as both inspiration and expectation to similarly position itself in the digitalising planning agenda.
In this one-hour session, the MHCLG Open Digital Planning team and Milton Keynes City Council shared their work and experiences.
The webinar began with an introduction from Matt Wood-Hill, Service Owner for MHCLG Open Digital Planning, who provided an overview of the ODP — a key component of the Digital Planning Programme.
This was followed by presentations from Sarah Evans, James Williamson, and Jacob Wilkins from Milton Keynes City Council, who shared their involvement in the Open Digital Planning Programme and their experiences with digital planning across development management, plan-making, monitoring, and the city’s Digital Action Plan.
Agenda Outline:
Welcome and Introduction: Dr Wei Yang OBE, CEO, Digital Task Force for Planning
Presentations:
Matt Wood-Hill, Service Owner, Open Digital Planning, MHCLG
Open Digital Planning
Sarah Evans, Planning Projects and Services Manager, Milton Keynes City Council
The lifecycle of the BESS (Built Environment Software Solution) project – a project to replace MKCC back-office built environment systems – sharing successes, lessons learned and ongoing challenges for the future.
James Williamson, Implementation and Monitoring Team Leader, Milton Keynes City Council
The digitalisation of MKCC’s site assessment work for the emerging Local Plan, the piloting of the Arcus monitoring module, and how digitalising Section 106 processes helps with programming spend.
Jacob Wilkins, Graduate Town Planner and Digital Lead, Milton Keynes City Council
MKCC’s participation in the MHCLG Open Digital Planning programme, and what is happening now and next as part of its Digital Action Plan.
Useful links mentioned during the presentations:
- Web link to Milton Keynes City Council (MKCC) Regulation 19 Digital IDP, hosted by AECOM on their PlanEngage platform Home – MKISS Digital IDP
- The digital version of MKCC SHLAA using the Placemaker platform Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment Report
- The platform on which MKCC have published their Reg 19 plan on, which will capture the consultation responses (also Placemaker) Milton Keynes City Plan 2050 Proposed Submission
- MKCC Public Facing Module of Exacom Milton Keynes PFM – Home
