Manchester City Council moves planning services onto one Arcus platform

Manchester City Council has put Planning, Building Control and Local Land Charges onto the same digital platform as its Arcus Regulatory Services system after a 12-month rollout. The move is meant to replace legacy systems, speed up service requests and support the council’s push to become a leading digital city.

Why it matters: - Manchester City Council is consolidating key regulatory and planning functions onto one platform to cut delays, reduce errors and improve oversight. - The shift supports the council’s stated ambition to become a leading digital city and move away from legacy systems. - Residents, businesses and council staff should get a clearer route through planning, building control and land charge requests.

What happened: - Manchester City Council moved its Planning, Building Control and Local Land Charges services onto the same integrated digital platform as its Arcus Regulatory Services solution. - The go-live followed a 12-month implementation. - The rollout completed in July 2026.

The details: - The deployment brings services that were previously run across separate systems into one digital environment. - The platform is designed to streamline day-to-day application processing and land searches. - The Council says the new setup will unify records and reduce errors. - The partnership between Manchester City Council and Arcus Global began in 2025 with the implementation of the Arcus Regulatory Services solution. - Arcus and the Council completed that earlier deployment on time and on budget. - After that rollout, Manchester City Council chose to migrate the Built Environment function to the Arcus platform ahead of the July launch. - Planning and Building Control teams across England are under pressure to turn applications around faster while serving rising public demand. - Many local authorities still rely on legacy systems that keep data in silos. - Consolidating services onto a single platform with modern APIs is intended to reduce administrative burden and improve oversight.

Between the lines: - The move suggests Manchester City Council is using technology consolidation as a practical way to tackle service backlogs and data fragmentation. - The project also deepens Arcus Global’s footprint inside the council after the earlier Regulatory Services rollout. - Denis Kaminskiy, CEO at Arcus Global, said the extension of the partnership follows the successful 2025 implementation and supports the council’s move toward digitally enabled services.

What's next: - Manchester City Council is now expected to operate its regulatory and built-environment services through the integrated Arcus platform. - The council and Arcus Global will likely focus on using the unified system to improve processing speed, service visibility and data management. - More information is available from Arcus Global and the company’s LinkedIn page.