Development Intent
AtlasBarking and DagenhamOfficersBethany Robins
Case officer · Barking And Dagenham Planning

Bethany Robins.

Active — last recorded decision May 2026

A case officer at Barking And Dagenham with an approval rate of 66% across 486 decided planning applications, spanning 22 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer486 decisions66% approvalSave
Barking And Dagenham · ward map
Approval rate — by ward
Lower ~68%
Higher ~90%
ShowingAll years · subscriber →across all years on record — a period re-scopes the headline figures and the trend
At a glanceEach metric links to the investigation behind it
All investigations →
486
Applications
2021–26
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%72%202161%202265%202367%202564%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate66% · 14th of 29
higher is betterdashed = London avg
Decision time · publishes with decision notices
in development
Appeal overturn · publishes with decision notices
in development
How this officer decides — from their own reports638 officer reports parsed
0%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
100%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
5%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
50%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Barking And Dagenham's average officer

Topic mentions per 1,000 words of their own report text (boilerplate stripped), indexed against all parsed Barking And Dagenham reports. Attention, not stance.

Energy & sustainability
1.21× borough avg
Materials & detailing
1.15× borough avg
Trees & landscape
1.12× borough avg
Precedent & consistency
1.06× borough avg
Transport & parking
1.04× borough avg

Mark = borough average (1×). Bar capped at 2×.

How they reason — coded from their reports

Robins' caseload is dominated by householder extensions and loft conversions within the Becontree Estate — a non-designated heritage asset whose symmetrical terraced-row form she treats as a structural constraint on every scheme, not just conservation-area cases. Her reasoning is unusually granular about the terrace's existing pattern of extension: she checks whether EACH adjoining neighbour already has a comparable extension before judging loss of daylight/outlook/overbearing, and where only one neighbour of a pair has an existing rear extension she is more willing to find 'potential for the proposal to generate material loss of daylight and outlook' to the un-extended one specifically, even when the extension itself complies with the SPD depth guidance. She is comfortable naming a scheme's design as 'a bulky and discordant feature that does not fit' the host dwelling even where she ultimately finds neighbouring-amenity impacts acceptable, treating design-fit and amenity harm as separate tests rather than one combined verdict.

Observable habits

· checks whether EACH adjoining neighbour already has an existing comparable extension before judging daylight/outlook/overbearing impact on that specific neighbour, rather than applying one amenity verdict to the whole terrace

· separates 'does this fit the Becontree Estate's symmetrical terraced-row character' from 'does this harm neighbouring amenity' as two distinct tests, sometimes finding a scheme bulky/discordant on design while still finding amenity impacts acceptable

· treats a terrace's existing gap between neighbouring properties (e.g. the gap above garages between end-of-terrace houses) as a 'recurring feature' worth preserving in its own right, separate from any amenity calculation

What their reports consistently look for

· whether each affected neighbour already has an existing rear/side extension of comparable scale, which she treats as reducing the marginal amenity harm of a new proposal

· whether the proposed depth/height complies with the Residential Extensions and Alterations SPD's numeric thresholds (3.65m depth, 45-degree angle rule)

· whether the design would preserve or close up a 'recurring feature' gap between terraced properties that contributes to the estate's sense of openness and symmetry

Assigned Bethany Robins on a live case?What they pay attention to, how they reason, and what their reports consistently look for — so you can address it before they raise it.Subscribe to unlock →
In their own words

Whilst it is noted that the adjoining property no.5 Ilchester Road has a 6 metre deep rear extension, approved under planning application no.18/00798/PRIOR6, the adjoining property no.1 Ilchester Road does not host a rear extension therefore, there is potential for the proposal to generate material loss of daylight and outlook to neighbouring properties

21/00828/HSE

The existing gap above the garages between this property and no.18 Buller Road is a recurring feature along the road that creates a sense of separation between the rows of terraces

21/00866/HSE

Measured from 638 published Barking And Dagenham officer reports written by this officer, with recited policy boilerplate stripped before any counting. These describe how this officer works and writes — they are not outcome predictions. Every quote is from a named public report.

Policy playbook — what this officer cites[3]

The policies this officer cites most in their own reports — times cited across 638 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

SP2Delivering a well-designed, high-quality and resilient built environment
80 times cited
D4
70 times cited
BP8
70 times cited
D1
67 times cited
BP11
65 times cited
DMD1Securing high-quality design
65 times cited
D6housing q ua lit y a nd st a nd a rd s, a nd / or it s relev a nt
56 times cited
CP3
51 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2021–26.[1] Click the map above to focus this page on a ward, or a row to open the ward.

Recent applications
Address
Reference
Type
Outcome
Date
26/00408/FULL
Full Planning Permission
Refused
2026-06-08
26/00388/HSE
Householder Planning Permission
Approved
2026-06-02
26/00408/FULL
Full Planning Permission
Refused
2026-06-08
26/00388/HSE
Householder Planning Permission
Approved
2026-06-02
Full application history locked
Subscribe to see all 486 decisions →
Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Cityscape PA
2. Harlequin Group
3. Livarch Ltd
4. Town & County Valuers & Surveyors Ltd
At a glance
OfficerBethany Robins
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications486 (2021–26)
Approval rate66%
London approval avg81%
Who decides here
GovernmentMayor of LondonCouncilCommitteeOfficersDecisionsApplicantsInspectorate
Related investigations
When committees overrule officers like this one →
How often members depart from officer recommendations, and how those overrides fare at appeal.
How much gets decided without a committee →
The delegated share by borough and officer — where the real power over decisions sits.
Sources & method
  1. [1]Applications decided, approval rate, per-year trend and ward breakdown — London Borough of Barking And Dagenham planning register and published decision notices, 2021–26. · methodology
  2. [2]Appeal overturn and decision-time benchmarks — Planning Inspectorate (PINS) appeal decisions and application date pairs; not yet computed per officer, shown as a dash until they are. · PINS appeals casework
  3. [3]Condition load — mean effective conditions attached to Barking And Dagenham decision notices (grant/split), parsed from the published notice text; a borough figure, not yet split per case officer.
  4. [4]"How this officer decides", the policy playbook and all quotes — parsed from 638 published Barking And Dagenham officer reports written by this officer, recited policy boilerplate stripped before counting; disposition text coded from their own reasoning with every quote machine-verified verbatim. Descriptive of how they work — not outcome predictions.
Methodology is published in full so every number is traceable to its primary source.