Development Intent
AtlasWaltham ForestOfficersAlishba Emanuel
Case officer · Waltham Forest Planning

Alishba Emanuel.

Active — last recorded decision May 2026

A case officer at Waltham Forest with an approval rate of 79% across 402 decided planning applications, spanning 14 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer402 decisions79% approvalSave
Waltham Forest · 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 →
402
Applications
2023–26
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%69%202374%202482%202584%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate79% · 14th of 49
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 reports130 officer reports parsed
1%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
3%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
2%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
60%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Waltham Forest's average officer

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

Bulk & massing
2.7× borough avg
Noise & disturbance
1.89× borough avg
Character & heritage
1.42× borough avg
Outlook & amenity
1.2× borough avg
Daylight & sunlight
1.11× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Emanuel's caseload is weighted heavily toward HMO Certificate-of-Lawfulness applications with lengthy, contested evidence chains (tenancy agreements, licensing correspondence, council tax and utility records spanning a decade or more), and her distinctive habit is to state plainly where the burden of proof has not been met rather than giving equivocal or partial credit for incomplete evidence -- she treats each individual document's date range and corroboration separately before reaching an overall balance-of-probabilities conclusion. On design/amenity full applications she runs a similarly granular, room-by-room dormer-volume and space-standard calculation, and on refusals for design reasons she is willing to attribute the harm specifically to the cumulative bulk/scale of a scheme being 'top-heavy' rather than to any single dimension in isolation.

Observable habits

· on HMO Certificate-of-Lawfulness applications, assesses each individual piece of documentary evidence's date range and corroboration separately before reaching an overall balance-of-probabilities conclusion

· explicitly states where the evidential burden has not been discharged rather than giving partial credit for an incomplete chain of tenancy/licensing documents

· on design refusals, attributes harm to the cumulative bulk and scale of a scheme being 'top-heavy' and disproportionate to the host building, rather than isolating one dimension

What their reports consistently look for

· whether the submitted tenancy/licensing/utility evidence, taken together, corroborates continuous use for the full statutory period without unexplained gaps

· whether the cumulative bulk, scale and massing of a proposed extension reads as proportionate and subordinate to the host dwelling, not just each element in isolation

· whether a dormer's calculated roof-space volume falls within the GPDO Class B 40/50 cubic-metre threshold for the dwelling type

Assigned Alishba Emanuel 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 submitted evidence provided is inadequate to demonstrate that, on the balance of probabilities, the property was in use as three separate residential units

232729

results in visually dominant addition that is top-heavy and not subordinate to, or in keeping with, the host building

240290

The provided information does not illustrate that the property was in continuous use from May 2014 due to the lack of evidence to corroborate the claim of continuous use

240784

Measured from 130 published Waltham Forest 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 130 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

79Biodiversity and Geodiversity
51 times cited
53Delivering High Quality Design
40 times cited
57Amenity
29 times cited
85A Zero Carbon Borough
11 times cited
D4
7 times cited
56Residential Space Standards
6 times cited
72Conservation Areas
6 times cited
DM32
4 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward
Ward
Decisions
Approval rate

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2023–26.[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
260566
Full Planning
Refused
2026-06-02
260798
Householder Planning
Approved
2026-06-01
260566
Full Planning
Refused
2026-06-02
260798
Householder Planning
Approved
2026-06-01
Full application history locked
Subscribe to see all 402 decisions →
Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Civils Consulting Ltd
2. Archway Building Consultancy Limited
3. Resi Design Ltd
4. LONDON CONSULTANTS LTD
At a glance
OfficerAlishba Emanuel
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications402 (2023–26)
Approval rate79%
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 Waltham Forest planning register and published decision notices, 2023–26. · 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 Waltham Forest 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 130 published Waltham Forest 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.