Development Intent
AtlasHackneyOfficersGerard Livett
Case officer · Hackney Planning

Gerard Livett.

Last recorded decision Aug 2023 — no decisions in this record since

A case officer at Hackney with an approval rate of 67% across 315 decided planning applications, spanning 21 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer315 decisions67% approvalSave
Hackney · 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 →
315
Applications
2020–23
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%58%202067%202167%202271%2023
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate67% · 43rd of 52
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 reports279 officer reports parsed
17%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
14%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
6%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
83%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Hackney's average officer

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

Transport & parking
1.76× borough avg
Noise & disturbance
1.13× borough avg
Character & heritage
1.06× borough avg
Privacy & overlooking
1.05× borough avg
Bulk & massing
1× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Livett's corpus carries a disproportionate share of refusals and Certificate-of-Lawfulness evidential disputes, and he is explicit about weighing a proposal 'when viewed in addition to other extensions at the property' — i.e. cumulative impact rather than assessing each addition in isolation. His CIL calculations name the specific additional floorspace figure driving the liability.

Observable habits

· assesses cumulative impact of a proposal alongside a site's own existing extensions, not the new element in isolation

· states the precise additional floorspace figure (sqm) that triggers a CIL liability rather than a general liability statement

· identifies the specific evidential gap (missing accuracy, insufficient period covered) that undermines a Certificate of Lawfulness application

What their reports consistently look for

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a new extension, taken TOGETHER with existing extensions on the same site, still results in a proportionate development

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: continuous, gap-free documentary evidence (tenancy agreements, business rates) spanning the full statutory period for a lawfulness certificate

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the specific additional floorspace figure that determines CIL liability

Assigned Gerard Livett 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 extension, although relatively modest in its own right, would, when viewed in addition to other extensions at the property, result in a development that overall would not have a sense of proportion and balance in relation to the original building

2020/0331

The application proposes an additional 143 square meters of floorspace. The proposal would be liable for both the Mayor of London's and the Hackney Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).

2020/0522

The drawings at a scale of 1:100 are insufficiently accurate to demonstrate that the existing and proposed windows would have the same dimensions.

2020/0583

Measured from 279 published Hackney 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 279 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

HC1Allocation: Mixed use
92 times cited
D3Allocation: Mixed-use including residential
92 times cited
LP1Part A will be applied having regard to the scale and location of the
88 times cited
D4Allocation: Mixed-use including residential
86 times cited
LP3Designated Heritage Assets
80 times cited
G5
35 times cited
T4
32 times cited
G6
30 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2020–23.[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
2023/2026
Listed Building Consent
Approved
2023-10-27
2023/2026
Listed Building Consent
Approved
2023-10-27
Full application history locked
Subscribe to see all 315 decisions →
Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. SAM Planning Services
2. Redwoods Projects Ltd
3. CMA Planning
4. John Stebbing Architects Ltd
At a glance
OfficerGerard Livett
BoroughHackney
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications315 (2020–23)
Approval rate67%
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 Hackney planning register and published decision notices, 2020–23. · 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 Hackney 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 279 published Hackney 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.