Victoria Bates.
Active — last recorded decision May 2026
A case officer at Croydon with an approval rate of 61% across 325 decided planning applications, spanning 26 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 Croydon reports. Attention, not stance.
Mark = borough average (1×). Bar capped at 2×.
Bates's reports run a consistently rigorous, room-by-room Quality of Accommodation test (Technical Housing Standards sqm figures per unit) even on schemes she ultimately refuses for reasons unrelated to accommodation quality, and she is precise on refuse-travel-distance measured in exact metres against the 30m Building-Regulations collection-distance norm. She treats a shortfall against a single numeric test (e.g. one unit 1sqm below standard) as non-fatal in isolation but stacks multiple lesser shortfalls (poor outlook, cramped stacking, refuse-travel distance) into a cumulative refusal rather than relying on any one factor alone.
· measures refuse-store travel distance to the collection point in exact metres against the 30m Building-Regulations norm, rather than describing it as merely 'convenient' or 'inconvenient'
· explicitly distinguishes a minor numeric shortfall (e.g. 1sqm below standard) as 'not basis for refusal alone' from a cumulative stack of lesser deficiencies that together support refusal
· cites the Mayor's Housing SPG 'Standard 30'/London Plan Policy 7.15 noise-transmission stacking-arrangement test between vertically adjacent rooms of different use, not just floor area compliance
· refuse-store travel distance measured in exact metres, tested against the 30m Building Regulations collection-point norm
· whether a parking-stress survey was conducted at a representative time and correctly excludes CPZ roads under the Lambeth Methodology
· whether a vertically-stacked layout (e.g. a bedroom below a kitchen/living room) complies with the Mayor's Housing SPG noise-transmission Standard 30
“the distance that residents would have to drag their bins the collection point is too far (and would not pass Building Regulations). This arrangement is not acceptable as it unreasonable to expect residents to drag full bins (landfill, recycling and food waste) more than 30 metres”
20/00482/FUL
“Parking stress surveys were undertaken in half term week which is not acceptable and included Whitgift Avenue which is in a CPZ and therefore as per Lambeth Methodology cannot be included in the surveys”
20/00597/FUL
Measured from 149 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.
The policies this officer cites most in their own reports — times cited across 149 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
Show all 26 rows
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.
- [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]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 — 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]"How this officer decides", the policy playbook and all quotes — parsed from 149 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.