The objective of VEPS is to promote the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for e-planning, consultation and communication of citizens view on planning issues, particularly those regarding the environment. Members of the public will be able to view and respond on their home computers to planned changes to their local neighbourhoods. The 4.2 M euro project will seek to achieve this by refining and implementing a number of test bed schemes in the NW Europe region through the sharing of technical expertise in 3-D visualisation, ICT applications to promote public consultation and environmental modelling. The goal is also to design an open system that can then be transferred to other regions to promote citizens involvement in the planning process, so helping to promote the balanced spatial development of NW Europe. Trans-national co-operation between the eight project partners is valuable on this project, both for sharing experience and the heavy costs involved. Achievements: VEPS:Successfully produced three 3D prototypes and two 2D prototypes for online participation, plus environmental simulations in Google Earth. Prototypes are available on the web for the public to test at http:///www.veps3d.org. The results have proved that it is technically possible and could be taken forward through other projects. It has improved awareness of 3D for public participation and the INSPIRE directive. Making prototypes available as open source will improve the technical knowledge base and contribute to the knowledge base for 3D data management. Also advances in LiDAR data object recognition (Freiburg). The VEPs proposal contributed to the UK Government Department for Communities and Local government (DCLG) ePlanning blueprint for the UK. DCLG envisage the use of 3D data technologies in planning but it will be long process of take up through policy, over the next 5 – 10 years. Impact of planning Dept in the City of Stuttgart (provided a tool for internal discussion). Changed their view on how they might use their model and there is now a strong will to use their model in their daily work and we have shown them there are ways of working now and in the future where you will need 3D model management. Groundwork are adding to ways in which it conducts public consultation by using 3d visualisations and commenting. These prototypes have used open source software and in building these applications the project has challenged current standards A Key VEPs document will be the evaluation report to be made publicly available on the homepage. This report will bring together the experiences of the partnership when testing the prototypes with members of their organisations and public Published academic papers at: UDMS; IV05/07 and CORP