Development Intent
AtlasKingston Upon ThamesOfficersJames Garside
Case officer · Kingston Upon Thames Planning

James Garside.

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

A case officer at Kingston Upon Thames with an approval rate of 70% across 260 decided planning applications, spanning 34 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer260 decisions70% approvalSave
Kingston Upon Thames · 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 →
260
Applications
2020–23
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%74%202177%202264%2023100%2024
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate70% · 17th of 32
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 reports58 officer reports parsed
13%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
13%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
2%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
80%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Kingston Upon Thames's average officer

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

Transport & parking
1.48× borough avg
Privacy & overlooking
1.33× borough avg
Daylight & sunlight
1.18× borough avg
Flooding & drainage
1.16× borough avg
Trees & landscape
1.14× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Garside handles Kingston's most complex major/outline schemes (care homes, large residential-led redevelopments in conservation areas) and is distinctive for engaging directly with an external Design Review Panel's own recorded feedback -- quoting its specific recommendations and concerns verbatim -- before reaching his own independent design conclusion, and for a granular neighbour-by-neighbour overlooking/privacy assessment that names each individually affected property in turn rather than a generalised amenity finding. He has the lowest coded approval comfort among the officers read in depth, reflecting a caseload concentrated in contentious, high-scrutiny major applications rather than routine householder work.

Observable habits

· quotes an external Design Review Panel's own recorded recommendations and concerns verbatim before reaching an independent design conclusion, rather than treating panel feedback as advisory background

· structures neighbouring-amenity assessment neighbour-by-neighbour, naming each individually affected property and quantifying overlooking/privacy impact separately for each rather than a single generalised finding

· explicitly distinguishes the lesser amenity protection owed to commercial neighbours from residential neighbours when assessing overlooking impact

What their reports consistently look for

· an external Design Review Panel's own specific recorded recommendations and concerns, addressed individually

· overlooking and privacy impact assessed separately for each individually named neighbouring property

· whether a major scheme's scale, footprint and massing result in 'less than substantial harm' to a conservation area's character under NPPF heritage policy

Assigned James Garside 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

Either reduce the amount of accommodation or convincingly demonstrate how a building of this size can fit onto this site successfully

21/01313/OUT

results in a building of excessive scale and mass and a plot density that is wholly out of keeping the pattern of development in the surrounding area and fails to address the site context, resulting in harm to the local townscape and less than substantial harm to the character and appearance of the Claremont Road Conservation Area

21/01313/OUT

Measured from 58 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.

Policy playbook — what this officer cites[3]

The policies this officer cites most in their own reports — times cited across 58 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

DM10Design Requirements for New Developments (including House Extensions)134
60 times cited
DM9Managing Vehicle Use for New Development
37 times cited
D3
36 times cited
DM8Sustainable Transport for New Development
30 times cited
D12
25 times cited
D6
24 times cited
DM1Sustainable Design and Construction Standards
20 times cited
CS10Housing Delivery
20 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
23/01158/FUL
Full Application
Approved
2024-01-10
23/02094/FUL
Full Application
Approved
2023-12-29
23/01158/FUL
Full Application
Approved
2024-01-10
23/02094/FUL
Full Application
Approved
2023-12-29
Full application history locked
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Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Omega Technologies Group
2. Monument Architecture and Design Ltd
3. Archaize Ltd
4. JAIA Architects
At a glance
OfficerJames Garside
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications260 (2020–23)
Approval rate70%
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 Kingston Upon Thames 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 Kingston Upon Thames 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 58 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.
Methodology is published in full so every number is traceable to its primary source.