Objecting to planning application using AI
Objecting to planning application using AI
Author
Discussion

Audis5b9

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

99 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
Anyone done it? Recommend it?

Our neighbours want to split there plot and put an additional house between us... not ideal for us, so intend to object to it.

Considering going at it using Claude AI or via a Planning Consultant (who we have used in the past successfully).

The question really is, is the AI as good as a £1000 spent with a consultant?

I think I am leaning towards the consultant since this will have a much larger £ affect on my property value and dont really want to risk it with AI unless told otherwise...

bobtail4x4

4,368 posts

136 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
a decent consultant is worth every penny,

ExBoringVolvoDriver

11,608 posts

70 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
bobtail4x4 said:
a decent consultant is worth every penny,
Agree - I wouldn’t want to rely on AI for something potentially complex and with specific nuances that AI will not be able to cope with.

LooneyTunes

9,264 posts

185 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
Audis5b9 said:
Anyone done it? Recommend it?

Our neighbours want to split there plot and put an additional house between us... not ideal for us, so intend to object to it.

Considering going at it using Claude AI or via a Planning Consultant (who we have used in the past successfully).

The question really is, is the AI as good as a £1000 spent with a consultant?

I think I am leaning towards the consultant since this will have a much larger £ affect on my property value and dont really want to risk it with AI unless told otherwise...
I use Claude (Opus) daily for buildings related work, including planning/regulatory (it is scarily good at QS type work).

AI is dangerous if you lean too hard on it and take what it says as gospel.

If you have a workable knowledge of the subject area and 1) can precisely direct the AI (focussed questions, steering towards key sources, etc); and 2) are willing to take the time to critique the AI's output; and 3) spend time refining the AI's output, then it can be incredibly powerful.

Where Claude is exceptionally good is drafting. BUT you need to get it to a place where the drafting is going to be both accurate and reflective of what you want it to say, In essence, if you're the sort of person who would be able to make a decent fist of it without[ AI then AI can supercharge your output.

Audis5b9

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

99 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
LooneyTunes said:
I use Claude (Opus) daily for buildings related work, including planning/regulatory (it is scarily good at QS type work).

AI is dangerous if you lean too hard on it and take what it says as gospel.

If you have a workable knowledge of the subject area and 1) can precisely direct the AI (focussed questions, steering towards key sources, etc); and 2) are willing to take the time to critique the AI's output; and 3) spend time refining the AI's output, then it can be incredibly powerful.

Where Claude is exceptionally good is drafting. BUT you need to get it to a place where the drafting is going to be both accurate and reflective of what you want it to say, In essence, if you're the sort of person who would be able to make a decent fist of it without[ AI then AI can supercharge your output.
I have zero planning knowledge (or desire to learn it!) so I do appreciate I dont want to be blindly led by the machine!

I did get ChatGPT to review Claude's efforts and refine it... seems to think the other one did a fairly good job.

I reckon I will still go with the consultant, but will be interesting to see how their work compares.

Jeremy-75qq8

1,717 posts

119 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
As above take care.

Ai works very well when given a brief.

The full planing details.

Your non planning officer point of view as to why you don't like it

Details of the local authority.

Tell it to review the local plan and national planning framework for compliance.

Tell it to write an objective sticky strictly to planning criteria ( not the dust will be terrible and by budgie will be upset ).

In essence the better the brief the better the output. Give it 2 lines and expect something very vague or innacuate.

You can also use Gemini and deep seek and play them off against each other.

At the end of the day you will get a good result from it.

Good as a consultant. ? Probably not


Jeremy-75qq8

1,717 posts

119 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
As above take care.

Ai works very well when given a brief.

The full planing details.

Your non planning officer point of view as to why you don't like it

Details of the local authority.

Tell it to review the local plan and national planning framework for compliance.

Tell it to write an objective sticky strictly to planning criteria ( not the dust will be terrible and by budgie will be upset ).

In essence the better the brief the better the output. Give it 2 lines and expect something very vague or innacuate.

You can also use Gemini and deep seek and play them off against each other.

At the end of the day you will get a good result from it.

Good as a consultant. ? Probably not

Cow Corner 2.0

79 posts

7 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
The question I would ask would be is - is it worth it to save a grand?

As others have said, AI can be very useful, but it’s only really useful if you have the knowledge to review what it’s come up with.

There is a danger that by the time you discover your AI submission was crap, the planners will have determined the application…

Audis5b9

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

99 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
Cow Corner 2.0 said:
The question I would ask would be is - is it worth it to save a grand?

As others have said, AI can be very useful, but it s only really useful if you have the knowledge to review what it s come up with.

There is a danger that by the time you discover your AI submission was crap, the planners will have determined the application
Thats the crux of it... do I trust AI in what could affect my property value by many 0000's...no.

babelfish

1,014 posts

234 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
The police relied on AI and look how that faired: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r1zxgq0j7o

oyster

13,611 posts

275 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
Why would you assume an automatic loss of value of your home? And couldn’t you use that as a basis for your planning objection?

Audis5b9

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

99 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
oyster said:
Why would you assume an automatic loss of value of your home? And couldn t you use that as a basis for your planning objection?
We'd be going from our neighbours house being 40m from our property, to a new build 5m from our property... cant see that doing anything but decrease the value of ours...

It wouldnt be the basis of the objection, but certainly forms a large reason why we want to object.

bobtail4x4

4,368 posts

136 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
loss of value isnt a material issue

whatxd

489 posts

128 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
Loss of value is not a planning consideration and I wouldn't make any reference to it in your proposed objection. I'd get AI to take a look and see if it finds anything meaningful in terms of an objection that may carry some weight before desperately throwing money at a planning consultant.

Screenwash

334 posts

49 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
To the OP: do it cheaply or do it properly. The latter, if the issue is important to you.

Hoofy

79,829 posts

309 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
I'm a tight git and love using AI but for something this important, I'd be paying £1k. AI can get things wrong and this could be a terrible time to get things wrong.

Acuity31

302 posts

8 months

Wednesday 27th May
quotequote all
Well first off, how does them building another house be 'not ideal' for you?

T697JVS

204 posts

19 months

Thursday 28th May
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Screenwash said:
To the OP: do it cheaply or do it properly. The latter, if the issue is important to you.
This. Forget the AI nonsense

Jeremy-75qq8

1,717 posts

119 months

Thursday 28th May
quotequote all
Do you use ai regularly ?

I use it multiple times a day and sometimes all day for software development

Used properly with good prompts and reviewing what is does it is extremely good.

You can't blindly trust it but for a planking application with a good brief it will do a very very good job.

As my post above said as good as z consultant ? Probably not. But I bet the consultant uses it as their baseline. If not they are simply not working effectively. Frankly that goes for most things now. Ai will give you a very very solid baseline in under a minute. Well structured and coherent.


borcy

11,879 posts

83 months

Thursday 28th May
quotequote all
I think AI might be useful to see if you have any grounds to object. I don't think you can use a potential drop in house price or that a house is closer to you.

If you find have proper reasons then perhaps look at visiting a specialist.