Greenwich's planning committee is about to lose 82% of its caseload. Here's who decides your scheme instead.
From 31 October the national scheme of delegation applies in Greenwich. Of the committee's classified caseload over the last twelve months, 82% was exactly the minor and householder work that must now be officer-decided.
From 31 October 2026 the national scheme of delegation applies in Greenwich, as in every English planning authority. Applications for 1 to 9 homes on sites under half a hectare, householder applications and minor commercial schemes must be decided by planning officers. No committee, no councillor call-in, no exceptions.
In Greenwich that is a decisive change. Of the committee decisions in our archive over the last twelve months whose application type is classified, 82 per cent (69 of 84) were exactly these minor and householder applications. Under the new rules, more than four in five of the cases Greenwich's members considered last year would never have reached the chamber.
What still gets a committee
Major schemes, departures from the development plan and applications a chief planning officer and a nominated member jointly certify as significant can still be heard, by a committee now capped at 13 members. Our archive of Greenwich committee behaviour remains the record of how those members vote on the large and contentious cases that still qualify.
What replaces the committee for everyone else
A named case officer. And officers differ. Across Greenwich's active case officers we measure approval rates ranging from 10 to 90 per cent — an 80 percentage point spread between the most and least permissive officers handling comparable cases in the same borough.
For anyone bringing a small scheme forward in Greenwich the practical consequence is clear: the political risk is gone, the human risk is measurable, and it is measurable in advance. Before you buy the site or fix the design, you can know whether your application is officer-decided (for 1 to 9 homes it is), and what the officers deciding schemes like yours in Greenwich have done before.
With 82% of its committee caseload now moving to officers, Greenwich is one of London's most affected boroughs. The officer assigned to your scheme is a decision that used to be invisible.