William Flaherty.
Active — last recorded decision Apr 2026
A case officer at Kingston Upon Thames with an approval rate of 62% across 228 decided planning applications, spanning 35 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×.
Flaherty handles Kingston's major residential schemes (10+ units) and is distinctive for engaging directly with viability assessments -- naming the specific affordable-housing shortfall figure claimed by the applicant's viability assessor and the independent assessor's counter-conclusion -- and for a rigorous daylight/sunlight Average Daylight Factor (ADF) analysis citing exact BRE Guidance figures per room rather than a general finding. He applies the NPPF 'tilted balance' test explicitly where the Council cannot demonstrate a five-year housing land supply, and has a comparatively higher refusal comfort on major schemes where housing mix or heritage harm cannot be resolved through negotiation.
· engages directly with submitted viability assessments, naming the specific affordable-housing shortfall figure claimed and the independent viability assessor's counter-conclusion rather than accepting either at face value
· runs a room-by-room Average Daylight Factor (ADF) analysis against exact BRE Guidance figures for major residential schemes, rather than a general daylight/sunlight finding
· explicitly invokes the NPPF 'tilted balance' (paragraph 11(d)) where the Council cannot demonstrate a five-year housing land supply, naming the specific policies found out-of-date as a result
· the specific affordable-housing shortfall or provision figure claimed by the applicant's viability assessor, tested against an independent assessor's review
· room-by-room Average Daylight Factor compliance against exact BRE Guidance thresholds (1.5 for living/kitchen/dining rooms, 1.0 for bedrooms)
· whether the NPPF 'tilted balance' applies because the Council cannot demonstrate a five-year housing land supply, and which specific policies are rendered out-of-date as a result
“An independent Viability Assessor has reviewed the submitted Viability Assessment and, following the submission of additional information from the applicant's Viability Assessors in response to queries raised, has concluded that the scheme could viably provide 6 affordable dwellings on site”
20/03091/FUL
“it is set out that the Living Rooms would achieve ADF of 1.6 and 1.9 and that Bedrooms would achieve an ADF of 1.9”
20/03091/FUL
Measured from 79 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 79 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
Show all 35 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 79 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.