Development Intent
AtlasCroydonOfficersSamantha Dixon
Case officer · Croydon Planning

Samantha Dixon.

Active — last recorded decision Apr 2026

A case officer at Croydon with an approval rate of 74% across 64 decided planning applications, spanning 12 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer64 decisions74% approvalSave
Croydon · 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 →
64
Applications
2020–26
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%72%202181%202288%202367%202425%2025100%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate74% · 30th of 83
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 reports33 officer reports parsed
0%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
0%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
3%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
97%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Croydon's average officer

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

Energy & sustainability
2.81× borough avg
Noise & disturbance
2.02× borough avg
Character & heritage
1.67× borough avg
Daylight & sunlight
1.31× borough avg
Flooding & drainage
1.21× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Dixon's caseload spans routine householder extensions (largely reduced to formulaic flood-risk sign-offs) alongside at least one very large major retail/cultural-hub scheme where she engages in unusually broad multi-topic analysis spanning noise, biodiversity, community safety, equalities and Human Rights Act considerations. On the major scheme, she is notable for explicitly balancing Human Rights Act Article 1/Article 8 property and privacy rights against the volume of public objection (563 comments) and the public benefits of the scheme, rather than treating amenity harm and benefit as a purely policy-only balance.

Observable habits

· on routine householder schemes, reduces reasoning to a formulaic single-paragraph flood-risk/policy-compliance sign-off citing the specific policy numbers (SP4, DM10, SP6.4) rather than extended discursive analysis

· on major schemes, explicitly invokes the Human Rights Act 1998 (Article 1 of the First Protocol and Article 8) and balances it against the volume of public representations received and the scheme's public benefits

· tracks the iterative negotiation of ecological survey evidence (an initial Preliminary Ecological Appraisal found inconsistent, followed by additional survey work requested and provided) before reaching a conclusion

What their reports consistently look for

· the specific policy numbers (SP4, DM10, SP6.4) satisfied by a routine householder scheme's flood-risk and design compliance

· on major schemes, whether Human Rights Act property and privacy rights have been explicitly balanced against public objection volume and scheme benefits

· the negotiation history of ecological survey evidence, including any inconsistencies identified and additional survey work subsequently provided

Assigned Samantha Dixon 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

regard has been given to the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998, particularly Article 1 of the First Protocol, which protects the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions, and Article 8, which protects the right to respect for private and family life

23/04071/FUL

The ecologist found inconsistencies within the reports with regard to the surveys and assessment undertaken in relation to the bat roost potential of No.825 Brighton Road. As such further survey work was requested to be undertaken.

23/04071/FUL

Measured from 33 published Croydon 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 33 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

D3
11 times cited
DM10.6
6 times cited
DM10Design and character
3 times cited
T6.1
2 times cited
SP4Urban Design, Heritage and Local Character
2 times cited
D12
1 times cited
SP3Employment
1 times cited
SP2.2
1 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2020–26.[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
26/01040/HSE
Householder Application
Approved
2026-05-13
25/03540/FUL
Full planning permission
Approved
2026-05-06
26/01040/HSE
Householder Application
Approved
2026-05-13
25/03540/FUL
Full planning permission
Approved
2026-05-06
Full application history locked
Subscribe to see all 64 decisions →
Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. PLANS INK LTD
2. Barn Ltd
3. Grainger Planning Associates Ltd
4. Savills
At a glance
OfficerSamantha Dixon
BoroughCroydon
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications64 (2020–26)
Approval rate74%
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 Croydon planning register and published decision notices, 2020–26. · 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 Croydon 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 33 published Croydon 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.