Development Intent
AtlasHackneyOfficersSimone Ward
Case officer · Hackney Planning

Simone Ward.

Active — last recorded decision May 2026

A case officer at Hackney with an approval rate of 73% across 148 decided planning applications, spanning 21 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer148 decisions73% 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 →
148
Applications
2022–26
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%71%202480%202560%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate73% · 35th 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 reports89 officer reports parsed
25%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
14%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
10%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
57%
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
2.51× borough avg
Precedent & consistency
2.3× borough avg
Energy & sustainability
2.1× borough avg
Bulk & massing
1.53× borough avg
Transport & parking
1.41× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Ward's larger commercial/hotel-scale casework works methodically through a named checklist of transport sub-topics (Access, Trip Generation, Car Parking, Blue Badge, Cycle Parking, CMP) each as its own labelled section, and even on a refusal she documents in detail what conditions WOULD have applied had the scheme been approved — showing the full conditional analysis rather than stopping at the refusal reason.

Observable habits

· splits transport impact into a fixed sequence of named sub-topics (Access/Trip Generation/Car Parking/Blue Badge/Cycle Parking/CMP) rather than one combined transport section

· documents in full detail the conditions that WOULD have been attached had a refused scheme instead been approved, rather than stopping analysis at the refusal reason

· cites the specific BRE daylight/sunlight test's window and room counts (e.g. '70 windows serving 41 rooms') even in a refusal recommendation

What their reports consistently look for

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: each transport sub-topic (access, trip generation, parking, Blue Badge, cycling, CMP) addressed as its own distinct section

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the full set of conditions that would have applied had a refused scheme been approved, not just the refusal reasons

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the precise window and room counts tested in a BRE daylight/sunlight assessment, even where the overall recommendation is refusal

Assigned Simone Ward 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

A daylight and sunlight assessment was submitted in line with BRE guidelines, evaluating 70 windows serving 41 rooms in neighbouring properties. The results indicate that 91% of the windows (64) and 95% of the rooms (39) meet the BRE targets.

2023/1831

Had the application been considered acceptable a condition requiring the development to achieve BREEAM `Excellent' would be attached to the planning permission.

2023/1831

Had the application been deemed acceptable, a condition would have been imposed requiring further details on the design, capacity, and management of the refuse storage to ensure it meets policy requirements.

2023/1831

Measured from 89 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 89 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

D3Allocation: Mixed-use including residential
61 times cited
D4Allocation: Mixed-use including residential
61 times cited
D1130 Kingsland High Street and site to the rear 130A Kingsland High
59 times cited
G6
57 times cited
LP1Part A will be applied having regard to the scale and location of the
55 times cited
SI 2
51 times cited
SI 1
50 times cited
LP2Development and Amenity
50 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2022–26.[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
2026/0364
Householder Planning
Approved
2026-06-03
2026/0649
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2026-06-03
2026/0364
Householder Planning
Approved
2026-06-03
2026/0649
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2026-06-03
Full application history locked
Subscribe to see all 148 decisions →
Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Eade Planning Ltd
2. SAM Planning services
3. Redwoods Projects
4. Atelier 81
At a glance
OfficerSimone Ward
BoroughHackney
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications148 (2022–26)
Approval rate73%
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, 2022–26. · 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 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 89 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.