Development Intent
AtlasHackneyOfficersLivi Whyte
Case officer · Hackney Planning

Livi Whyte.

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

A case officer at Hackney with an approval rate of 76% across 84 decided planning applications, spanning 21 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer84 decisions76% 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 →
84
Applications
2021–24
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%80%202375%2024
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate76% · 30th 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 reports68 officer reports parsed
19%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
9%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
9%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
59%
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.

Daylight & sunlight
1.3× borough avg
Bulk & massing
1.28× borough avg
Character & heritage
1.26× borough avg
Privacy & overlooking
1.17× borough avg
Materials & detailing
1.11× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Whyte's refusals are explicit about the applicant's own submitted 45-degree-line evidence being found insufficiently robust to change the conclusion, and she assesses which specific existing habitable rooms would be affected floor-by-floor rather than a single blended outlook conclusion.

Observable habits

· explicitly states when the applicant's own submitted evidence (e.g. a 45-degree line diagram) is found not robust enough to be persuasive, rather than accepting it at face value

· assesses outlook/daylight impact floor-by-floor for each affected unit rather than one blended conclusion

· flags when a conservation-area heritage feature (e.g. a fence) lacks documented lawful establishment before accepting a claimed historic precedent

What their reports consistently look for

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether the applicant's own submitted technical evidence (e.g. 45-degree line diagrams) is actually robust enough to support their conclusion, not accepted automatically

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: floor-by-floor and unit-by-unit outlook impact, not a single building-wide conclusion

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: documented evidence that a claimed historic feature was lawfully established before treating it as a valid precedent

Assigned Livi Whyte 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 applicant has provided a 45 degree line on the proposed section plans however officers considered this not to be a robust demonstration that the proposed development would not impact on the neighbouring occupiers levels of light and therefore raise objection on these grounds.

2022/2997

As existing Flat 2's outlook is partially obscured as the existing rear extension terminates approximately 0.5m shy of the top of the window at a distance of some 4m from the window. The proposed development would build up a further storey completely obscuring the window to Flat 2 which serves a Living room/kitchen and is their only habitable space

2022/2997

Whilst it is acknowledged based on historical images, there was previously a similar fence in the same location, it has not been adequately demonstrated that the fence was lawfully established and there are no available Council records in relation to the fence.

2023/0876

Measured from 68 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 68 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

D1130 Kingsland High Street and site to the rear 130A Kingsland High
54 times cited
LP1Part A will be applied having regard to the scale and location of the
54 times cited
LP2Development and Amenity
54 times cited
LP54Overheating and Adapting to Climate Change
54 times cited
LP55Mitigating Climate Change
54 times cited
D3Allocation: Mixed-use including residential
47 times cited
D6Allocation: Retail/market uses
46 times cited
D4Allocation: Mixed-use including residential
44 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2021–24.[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
2024/0812
Householder Planning
Approved
2024-09-06
2024/0943
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2024-08-20
2024/0812
Householder Planning
Approved
2024-09-06
2024/0943
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2024-08-20
Full application history locked
Subscribe to see all 84 decisions →
Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Eade Planning Ltd
2. Redwoods Projects
3. Potter Raper Ltd
4. SAM Planning services
At a glance
OfficerLivi Whyte
BoroughHackney
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications84 (2021–24)
Approval rate76%
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, 2021–24. · 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 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 68 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.