Max Jones.
Active — last recorded decision Apr 2026
A case officer at Westminster with an approval rate of 85% across 187 decided planning applications, spanning 13 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×.
Jones handles a distinctive canal-boat/houseboat caseload alongside standard householder work, treating a boat's PLANNING use classification (residential) as separate from its physical/operator classification (a 'leisure mooring' per the Canals and River Trust), and testing whether a change of use genuinely contributes to the waterway's function. On boundary-wall alterations near listed buildings he requires the applicant to positively demonstrate a feature is NOT original before accepting its loss, rather than assuming non-originality by default.
· distinguishes a boat's formal PLANNING use classification (residential) from its physical/operator classification (a 'leisure mooring'), testing separately whether a proposed change genuinely contributes to the waterway's function
· requires the applicant to positively demonstrate that a boundary wall/feature near a listed building is NOT original before accepting its loss, rather than assuming non-originality absent evidence
· runs the BRE 45-degree daylight test as one factor alongside a check of whether similar-scale extensions are already common in the surrounding area, rather than either factor alone
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a boat's proposed use change genuinely contributes to the waterway's function, distinct from its formal planning use class
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: positive evidence that a boundary wall or feature near a listed building is NOT original before accepting its removal
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether similar-scale extensions are already common in the surrounding area, alongside the formal 45-degree daylight test result
“The boat as existing is considered as a leisure mooring by the Canals and Rivers Trust and a residential use in planning terms. It is not considered that the residential use contributes towards the waterways”
20/01689/FULL
“it has not been demonstrated that the existing front boundary is not original to the building; therefore the proposals may result in the loss of historic fabric”
20/01899/FULL
Measured from 107 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 107 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
Show all 13 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 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 107 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.