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Design and access statement drafts for architects

ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini draft a design and access statement from your notes for the architect to check and finish. Free to about $27£20€24A$38C$38 a month.

At a glance

  • What it costsFree–$27Free–£20Free–€24Free–A$38Free–C$38 a month

  • Worth, in extra profit or time saved in the worked example$532£400€476A$768C$752 a month

  • Pays for itselfIn a few days

  • Sign up and configure; no technical skills neededEasy to set up

Figures come from the worked example below, using its stated assumptions. Tool prices checked . How we check prices

The problem

Design and access statements are needed for many planning applications, and writing each from scratch takes half a day on a small project. A practice submitting 4 applications a month that need one, at 4 hours each, spends 16 hours a month on them.

What the AI does

Paste your notes into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini: the site and context, the brief, the design decisions and why you made them, materials, access and the planning policies you've identified. Leave out the client's name and address. Ask for a statement under the headings your council uses. The architect then checks every statement against the drawings, the site and the local plan, corrects anything wrong and signs it off.

A worked example

A two-person architecture practice in Kent submits about 4 applications a month that need a design and access statement, many in conservation areas. The architect keeps structured notes during design and uses an assistant for the first draft.

Before

4 statements a month at 4 hours each: 16 hours

After

If a draft plus checking and editing takes 1 hour 30 minutes each: 6 hours

What it's worth

About $532£400€476A$768C$752 a month saved, at no cost on the free plans. About 10 hours a month saved (16 down to 6), worth about $532£400€476A$768C$752 at an assumed $53£40€48A$77C$75 an hour, if the checking really takes about 90 minutes (an assumption to test on one application). The free plans of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini can do this; a paid plan is about $27£20€24A$38C$38 a month for one person.

How to set it up

  1. Keep structured notes as you design: site, context, options considered, decisions and reasons, materials and access.
  2. Paste the notes into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini without the client's name or address, with the headings your council's validation checklist asks for.
  3. Give it the policy names and numbers yourself; don't ask it to find planning policy.
  4. Check every sentence against the drawings, photos and local plan, and rewrite anything that overstates the design.
  5. Sign off the final statement as the architect responsible before it is submitted.

What goes wrong

  • Assistants can invent policy numbers or misquote national policy. Every policy reference must come from you and be checked against the current local plan.
  • A statement that doesn't match the drawings can delay validation or count against the application. Read it alongside the drawings.
  • Generic wording reads as generic to planning officers. Keep the site-specific reasons for each decision.
  • Client and site details are confidential. Use a business plan with data terms, or leave identifying details out.

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Last updated October 17, 2026.