Development Intent
AtlasNewhamOfficersDaniel Ambrose
Case officer · Newham Planning

Daniel Ambrose.

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

A case officer at Newham with an approval rate of 88% across 162 decided planning applications, spanning 23 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer162 decisions88% approvalSave
Newham · 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 →
162
Applications
2021–23
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%92%202287%2023
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate88% · 11th of 39
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 reports248 officer reports parsed
23%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
12%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
4%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
46%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Newham's average officer

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

Precedent & consistency
2.29× borough avg
Outlook & amenity
1.44× borough avg
Bulk & massing
1.17× borough avg
Materials & detailing
1.14× borough avg
Character & heritage
1.09× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Ambrose handles a high proportion of prior-approval/CLP/legislative cases and states the governing statutory test explicitly (s.55 development definition, GPDO class criteria) before applying it. On full applications he reads a resubmission against its own prior refusal reasons line by line, and distinguishes 'acceptable in principle but poor detail' from outright refusal.

Observable habits

· states the exact statutory test (s.55 TCPA definition of development, or the specific GPDO class/criterion) before applying it to the facts

· checks a resubmitted scheme's amendments directly against the previous refusal's stated reasons

· separates principle-of-development acceptability from detailed design/amenity findings as distinct conclusions

What their reports consistently look for

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the precise statutory provision (s.55, or a named GPDO Schedule/Part/Class) engaged before any factual assessment

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: a point-by-point comparison of a resubmission against the previous scheme's stated refusal reasons

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a dormer is genuinely set in from the parapet walls, not merely annotated as such

Assigned Daniel Ambrose 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

the building up of the parapet walls, as indicated in the plans, would not merely constitute an extension to the roof, as the parapet walls do not form a part of the roof. This consideration has been held up at appeal

22/01975/CLP

Officers are satisfied that the proposed change from existing cafe to proposed mixed use comprising restaurant and offices does not represent `development' as defined under s.55(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as both uses fall within Use Class E and no external alterations are proposed

22/02003/CLP

Measured from 248 published Newham 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 248 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

SP3and J1). These are indicated in relevant spatial policies and more extensively but not
74 times cited
SP8Neighbourly development and living conditions
74 times cited
D3
72 times cited
SP1Borough
72 times cited
SP2Healthy Neighbourhoods
68 times cited
H1Stepped housing target for strategic sites delivery
67 times cited
D4
65 times cited
D1
63 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2021–23.[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
23/01713/FUL
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2023-12-15
23/01963/FUL
Full Planning Permission
Refused
2023-11-07
23/01713/FUL
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2023-12-15
23/01963/FUL
Full Planning Permission
Refused
2023-11-07
Full application history locked
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Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. CITYSCAPE PA
2. marood architects
3. Humphreys & Sons - Architecture & Surveyors
4. Civils Consulting Ltd
At a glance
OfficerDaniel Ambrose
BoroughNewham
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications162 (2021–23)
Approval rate88%
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 Newham planning register and published decision notices, 2021–23. · 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 Newham 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 248 published Newham 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.