Heather Redfern.
Active — last recorded decision May 2026
A case officer at Bexley with an approval rate of 93% across 389 decided planning applications, spanning 17 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.
Topic mentions per 1,000 words of their own report text (boilerplate stripped), indexed against all parsed Bexley reports. Attention, not stance.
Mark = borough average (1×). Bar capped at 2×.
Redfern's caseload spans householder extensions and a recurring category of garage-conversion applications where a garage was reserved by an EARLIER permission's parking condition, and she is distinctive for consistently measuring the existing garage's internal width in metres to establish that it 'is now no longer wider enough to house a modern-day motor vehicle' before waiving the parking-retention condition, treating this as an objective factual finding rather than a discretionary judgement call. She engages carefully with non-material-amendment boundary questions, explicitly reasoning through whether a height increase (e.g. 0.3m) takes a scheme 'outside of the remit of a non-material amendment' and requires full reconsultation, rather than defaulting to approval. On flood risk for minor outbuildings she gives a brief but explicit finding that the works 'would not materially alter surface water drainage characteristics' rather than treating flood risk as inapplicable by default.
· measures the specific internal width (in metres) of an existing garage reserved by an earlier permission's parking condition to establish objectively that it can no longer house 'a modern-day motor vehicle', before waiving that condition
· explicitly tests whether a proposed change (e.g. a 0.3m height increase) crosses the threshold from non-material to material amendment, requiring full reconsultation, rather than defaulting to non-material
· gives an explicit (if brief) flood-risk finding for minor outbuildings/loft conversions rather than treating flood risk as automatically inapplicable
· the specific internal width (in metres) of an existing garage subject to an earlier parking-retention condition, checked against modern vehicle dimensions
· whether a proposed amendment's dimensional change (height/depth) is a 'material difference to the proposal when compared to that approved' requiring reconsultation
· whether minor outbuilding/loft works would materially alter surface water drainage characteristics, stated as an explicit finding rather than assumed
“at 2.2 metres in width the garage is now no longer wider enough to house a modern-day motor vehicle. Given this no objection is raised on highways grounds”
24/02807/FUL
“it is considered that a full reassessment of the proposal needs to be undertaken as does a consultation with neighbouring properties. As such the proposal falls outside of the remit of a non-material amendment”
25/00412/FULMIN
Measured from 403 published Bexley 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.
The policies this officer cites most in their own reports — times cited across 403 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
Show all 17 rows
Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2024–26.[1] Click the map above to focus this page on a ward, or a row to open the ward.
- [1]Applications decided, approval rate, per-year trend and ward breakdown — London Borough of Bexley planning register and published decision notices, 2024–26. · methodology
- [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]Condition load — Bexley's decision-notice parsing is limited coverage, so no borough or officer figure is shown.
- [4]"How this officer decides", the policy playbook and all quotes — parsed from 403 published Bexley 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.