Place+ — Digital intelligence for better places

This week, we'll be at PropTech Connect in London, where we'll be showcasing the next stage of Place+, our digital placemaking platform.

When we introduced Place+ in May, we launched the free-to-access National Place Portrait, the first tool within the platform. Built from official data, it provides a single interactive view of place conditions across England and Wales, helping public and private sector users understand how places are changing and respond with greater clarity and confidence.

The National Place Portrait was always intended to be the foundation for something broader. Place+ brings together spatial intelligence, data science and multidisciplinary expertise to support more informed decisions at every scale. It combines evidence, analysis, design and engagement within a connected digital environment, supporting projects from early-stage site and place analysis through to strategy, masterplanning, development delivery and long-term asset management.

We’re now introducing the wider Place+ offer through four connected tools: Place+ Portrait, Place+ Analysis, Place+ Composer and Place+ Storyteller.

Place+ Portrait establishes a trusted evidence base by bringing together national, local and project-specific datasets into a single, accessible view of a place.

It provides a shared starting point for understanding a site, neighbourhood, town, city or wider region, bringing together spatial, economic, environmental and social information to reveal how places are performing and changing, and how different factors interact. The result is a live, shared environment for exploring place that keeps updating as conditions change, not a baseline fixed at a single point in time.

Where Portrait builds the evidence base, Place+ Analysis puts it to work, generating insights that can inform plans, strategies and project proposals, and identifying opportunities, constraints, market context and development potential.

Multiple datasets and criteria can be combined, weighted and assessed to explore complex spatial questions, test assumptions and compare scenarios. Analysis can also draw in accessibility, catchments, demographic and economic data, viability, forecasting and other project-specific inputs.

From there, Place+ Composer turns analysis into design: an interactive environment for shaping, iterating, testing and presenting proposals.

It brings spatial information, land uses, development assumptions and project parameters into an interactive model, so teams can develop and compare options as ideas evolve. Testing different scenarios through iterative design helps teams understand the implications of changes to land use, capacity, movement, infrastructure and other spatial components before they’re committed to.

The final piece, Place+ Storyteller, creates project websites that bring together plans, mapping, visualisations, evidence and project information within a single digital experience.

It’s designed to make complex projects easier to understand and engage with, supporting stakeholder engagement, feedback, public consultation and ongoing communication. Outputs from Place+ Portrait, Analysis and Composer can be brought together in the same place, so the platform stays live as a project develops.

From evidence to action

Together, these four tools carry a project from understanding through analysis, testing and communication, helping teams move more efficiently from evidence to action. It’s worth pausing on why that progression matters: the places we shape are complex, and decisions about growth, development and investment rarely turn on one factor alone. Economic viability, environmental constraints and social need often pull in different directions, and making sense of how they interact requires evidence to be brought together in ways that support exploration, comparison and informed judgement.

Digital tools can help make those relationships clearer, allowing teams to work with more evidence, test more possibilities and better understand the implications of different choices. For us, the value of technology lies in supporting that process, rather than replacing the expertise and judgement that good placemaking requires.

Developed from our placemaking work

Place+ has grown directly from our work at Prior + Partners and from our investment in digital innovation. It brings together the breadth of expertise within the practice, including digital innovation and data science, masterplanning and urban design, town planning and strategy, place economics, and graphics and branding.

The platform is also designed to extend beyond the four core tools. We develop bespoke digital tools and tailored functionality around specific project requirements, drawing on client and project datasets and responding to particular workflows, from customised spatial models and analytical tools to interactive platforms and other digital applications.

Find out more about Place+

PropTech Connect Europe provides an opportunity to bring this wider offer together and share more about how Place+ is being applied to real-world challenges across planning, development and regeneration.

Further information on Place+ and its four tools is available on our website, where you can also sign up to our mailing list. Alternatively, get in touch with our team to arrange a demonstration and explore how the platform could support your project.

Place+ Digital intelligence for better places.