Helen Harris.
Active — last recorded decision Apr 2026
A case officer at Kingston Upon Thames with an approval rate of 74% across 480 decided planning applications, spanning 36 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 Kingston Upon Thames reports. Attention, not stance.
Mark = borough average (1×). Bar capped at 2×.
Harris handles a heritage-weighted caseload including listed-building consent and conservation-area work, and is distinctive for a strict housing-mix preservation stance on section 73 variation applications -- refusing where a proposed change would reduce a previously-approved unit's bedroom count without justification, treating it as a straightforward Policy DM13 non-compliance rather than weighing other benefits. On listed-building-consent applications she opens consistently with the NPPF's heritage-asset 'enjoyed for their contribution to the quality of life' framing before the Section 66/Policy DM12 preservation test.
· on section 73 variation applications, refuses where a change would reduce a previously-approved unit's bedroom count without supporting justification, treated as a standalone Policy DM13 non-compliance
· opens listed-building-consent assessments with a consistent NPPF heritage-asset framing ('conserve heritage assets ... so that they can be enjoyed for their contribution to the quality of life') before the statutory preservation test
· on variation applications, explicitly compares the current proposal's impact against the ALREADY-APPROVED baseline scheme rather than against the pre-existing (unextended) building
· whether a section 73 variation would reduce a previously-approved unit's bedroom count without justification, triggering a standalone Policy DM13 objection
· the NPPF's 'quality of life' heritage-asset framing and the Section 66/Policy DM12 preservation test for listed-building-consent applications
· the incremental difference between the current variation proposal and the ALREADY-APPROVED baseline scheme, not the original unextended building
“the proposals would result in the loss of a 3-bed unit and there is no supporting justification provided as to why this 3-bed unit has not been re-provided as part of the proposed scheme. The proposed unit mix would be contrary to Policy DM13 of the Council's Core Strategy”
21/02095/FUL
“the Council should conserve heritage assets in a manner appropriate to their significance, so that they can be enjoyed for their contribution to the quality of life of this and future generations”
21/01174/LBC
Measured from 48 published Kingston Upon Thames 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 48 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
Show all 36 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 Kingston Upon Thames 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 Kingston Upon Thames 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 48 published Kingston Upon Thames 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.