Development Intent
AtlasBarking and DagenhamOfficersKathryn Mcallister
Case officer · Barking And Dagenham Planning

Kathryn McAllister.

Last recorded decision Aug 2024 — no decisions in this record since

A case officer at Barking And Dagenham with an approval rate of 56% across 376 decided planning applications, spanning 21 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer376 decisions56% 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 →
376
Applications
2020–24
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%52%202057%202168%202291%202370%2024
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate56% · 25th 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 reports325 officer reports parsed
68%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
2%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
19%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
67%
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
2.38× borough avg
Trees & landscape
2.11× borough avg
Transport & parking
1.41× borough avg
Materials & detailing
1.32× borough avg
Flooding & drainage
1.09× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

McAllister has the borough's highest volume of explicit approve/refuse full-application decisions (41 approve / 30 refuse of 325 reports), spanning householder extensions, HMO conversions and new infill dwellings, and her refusals concentrate on schemes she describes in unusually direct evaluative language — 'excessive, overbearing and incongruous' — rather than the more measured, qualified phrasing common elsewhere in the borough's corpus. On HMO conversions specifically, she treats the loss-of-family-housing principle and the technical space-standards compliance (storage provision, individual bedroom minimums) as SEPARATE, both-must-pass tests, refusing on storage/bedroom-standard failure even where the overall gross internal area complies. She is also willing to refuse a scheme on transport/parking grounds ALONE where a low-PTAL location's off-street parking provision falls short, treating this as a standalone reason for refusal rather than a secondary consideration.

Observable habits

· uses direct evaluative language for design refusals ('excessive, overbearing and incongruous') rather than the more qualified, hedged phrasing common among peers

· on HMO conversions, treats compliance with individual bedroom-area and storage minimums as a SEPARATE pass/fail test from the overall gross-internal-area figure, refusing on the narrower failure even where the aggregate area complies

· is willing to refuse on transport/parking provision ALONE in low-PTAL locations, framing inadequate off-street parking as a standalone reason for refusal rather than a factor to be weighed against other acceptable elements

What their reports consistently look for

· whether each individual bedroom and the storage provision in an HMO conversion meets the technical housing standards, independent of whether the aggregate gross internal area complies

· whether a proposal's scale, siting or design would be 'unduly prominent' or 'out of character' with the terrace/street scene, assessed against BP8/BP11

· whether off-street parking provision matches the PTAL-banded standard in Table 10.3 of the Draft London Plan, treated as capable of founding a refusal on its own

Assigned Kathryn McAllister 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

the proposed part single/part two-storey side extension is considered excessive, overbearing and incongruous and would not be in keeping with the character of the existing property

20/00007/FUL

officers consider the proposed development unacceptable as it fails to provide adequate off-street parking facilities detrimental to the character and apperance of the area

20/00062/FUL

Measured from 325 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 325 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

D4
117 times cited
D1
88 times cited
D6housing q ua lit y a nd st a nd a rd s, a nd / or it s relev a nt
79 times cited
BP8
78 times cited
BP11
78 times cited
GG1
76 times cited
GG3
76 times cited
CP3
70 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2020–24.[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
Full application history locked
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Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. arks design studio limited
2. Civils Consulting Ltd
3. Livarch Ltd
4. Hutton Enterprises
At a glance
OfficerKathryn McAllister
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications376 (2020–24)
Approval rate56%
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, 2020–24. · 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 325 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.