Development Intent
AtlasWestminsterOfficersHeidi Pearce
Case officer · Westminster Planning

Heidi Pearce.

Recently active — last recorded decision Oct 2025

A case officer at Westminster with an approval rate of 91% across 192 decided planning applications, spanning 15 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer192 decisions91% approvalSave
Westminster · 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 →
192
Applications
2020–25
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%97%202093%202193%202290%202386%20250%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate91% · 36th of 76
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 reports142 officer reports parsed
19%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
11%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
4%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
92%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Westminster's average officer

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

Character & heritage
2.23× borough avg
Precedent & consistency
2.17× borough avg
Materials & detailing
0.99× borough avg
Noise & disturbance
0.49× borough avg
Energy & sustainability
0.46× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Pearce's very high-significance listed-building casework (Victoria Palace Theatre, St James's Palace, Albert Hall Mansions) is methodical about a space's specific documented alteration chronology (a 1950s lateral conversion, post-war bomb-damage reconstruction) to decide how much further intervention is acceptable, and is comfortable accepting a passenger lift in a listed building where the interior has already been 'severely compromised' by earlier alterations — a departure she would 'often resist' elsewhere. She credits negotiated retention outcomes (original doors kept and stored for future reinstatement rather than discarded) as a genuine heritage benefit of the negotiation process.

Observable habits

· maps a space's specific documented alteration chronology (a 1950s lateral conversion, post-war reconstruction) to decide how much further intervention that part of the building can bear

· accepts an intervention she would 'often resist' in a pristine listed interior (a passenger lift) where the space has already been severely compromised by earlier authorised alterations

· credits a negotiated retention outcome (original fabric such as doors kept and stored for future reinstatement, rather than discarded) as a genuine benefit secured through negotiation

What their reports consistently look for

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: a space's specific documented alteration chronology, to judge exactly how much further intervention is acceptable

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether an interior has already been so heavily altered that an otherwise-resisted intervention (a lift) becomes acceptable

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether original fabric removed during negotiation is retained/stored for future reinstatement rather than discarded

Assigned Heidi Pearce 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 installation of a passenger lift would often be resisted in the context of a listed building of this type. However, in this particular case the interior has been heavily altered and is

20/01303/LBC

Following negotiations, the applicant has agreed to retain the doors within the building. The doors are to be stored within a rehearsal room until they can be incorporated into a future project when required

20/00085/LBC

Measured from 142 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.

Policy playbook — what this officer cites[3]

The policies this officer cites most in their own reports — times cited across 142 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

DES 10
2 times cited
D8
2 times cited
T2
2 times cited
S29
1 times cited
ENV 6
1 times cited
ENV 7
1 times cited
DES 1
1 times cited
DES 5
1 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2020–25.[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
25/07231/FULL
Full Planning Permission Application
Refused
2026-02-24
25/06779/LBC
Listed Building Consent Application
Approved
2025-11-14
25/07231/FULL
Full Planning Permission Application
Refused
2026-02-24
25/06779/LBC
Listed Building Consent Application
Approved
2025-11-14
Full application history locked
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Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Feilden+Mawson LLP
2. United Living
3. Firstplan
4. Purcell
At a glance
OfficerHeidi Pearce
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications192 (2020–25)
Approval rate91%
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 Westminster planning register and published decision notices, 2020–25. · 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 Westminster 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 142 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.
Methodology is published in full so every number is traceable to its primary source.