Damian Lavelle.
Active — last recorded decision Apr 2026
A case officer at Westminster with an approval rate of 89% across 334 decided planning applications, spanning 5 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 Westminster reports. Attention, not stance.
Mark = borough average (1×). Bar capped at 2×.
Lavelle's Mayfair/Central CAZ caseload covers listed-building consent, retail change of use, and commercial extensions, and he is particularly rigorous about the general rule that roof extensions on mansard-roofed buildings are 'ordinarily unacceptable' as completed compositions, only departing from it where a specific applicant demonstration (limited visibility from named viewpoints, a set-back railing) proves the exception applies. On retail-loss applications he requires concrete marketing evidence (named agents, asking rents, specific interested-party names) before accepting that a unit is genuinely unviable for its protected use.
· starts from the general design principle that roof extensions on mansard roofs are 'ordinarily unacceptable' as completed architectural compositions, and requires the applicant to demonstrate a specific exception (limited visibility from named viewpoints) before departing from it
· on retail-loss applications, requires concrete marketing evidence (named agent, specific asking rent, named interested parties who did not proceed) before accepting a unit is genuinely unviable for its protected A1 use
· notes when a condition from an original permission has ALREADY been discharged/complied with and is therefore no longer necessary to re-impose on a related application
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: a specific demonstrated exception (limited visibility from named viewpoints) before departing from the general 'mansard roofs are complete compositions' design principle
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: concrete marketing evidence (named agent, asking rent, named interested non-proceeding parties) before accepting a retail unit is genuinely unviable
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a condition from an original permission has already been discharged, avoiding unnecessary re-imposition
“Ordinarily, roof extensions are considered to be unacceptable on top of mansard roofs. This is because buildings with these roofs are considered to be completed compositions”
20/00434/FULL
“Savills commenced marketing the unit on behalf of Ormvale in March 2019 at an asking rent of �400,000 per annum”
20/00706/FULL
Measured from 263 published Westminster 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 263 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
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 Westminster 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 Westminster 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 263 published Westminster 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.