Development Intent
AtlasWestminsterOfficersMike Walton
Case officer · Westminster Planning

Mike Walton.

Active — last recorded decision May 2026

A case officer at Westminster with an approval rate of 93% across 124 decided planning applications, spanning 6 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer124 decisions93% 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 →
124
Applications
2020–26
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%100%202095%202182%202284%2023100%202495%2025100%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate93% · 27th 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 reports90 officer reports parsed
13%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
20%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
1%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
93%
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.

Energy & sustainability
2.56× borough avg
Daylight & sunlight
2.3× borough avg
Transport & parking
1.31× borough avg
Bulk & massing
0.81× borough avg
Outlook & amenity
0.8× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Walton's Mayfair/West End commercial casework tracks a scheme's precise relationship to a chain of prior permissions and conditions on the same site, cross-referencing specific condition numbers and their exact restriction wording (plant operating hours matched precisely to extended trading hours). He is meticulous about updating a delegated report to reflect intervening adoption of new development plan documents (City Plan, London Plan) between committee resolution and decision issue, treating each newly adopted document as requiring a fresh policy compliance check.

Observable habits

· cross-references specific numbered conditions and their exact restriction wording from a chain of prior permissions on the same site (matching plant-hours conditions precisely to newly extended trading hours)

· updates a delegated report to reflect intervening adoption of new development plan documents (a new City Plan, London Plan) between committee resolution and decision issue, checking policy compliance afresh against each

· tracks a site's relationship to a linked S106 obligation on a DIFFERENT site (a land-use swap requiring replacement residential elsewhere before an office scheme can be occupied)

What their reports consistently look for

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the exact wording of a specific numbered condition from a prior permission and whether it needs to be varied to match a new proposal

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a new development plan document has been adopted since committee resolution, requiring a fresh policy compliance check

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: an S106 obligation's precise link between two different sites, and whether it has been satisfied before the current scheme can proceed

Assigned Mike Walton 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 plant and associated equipment shall not operate except between the hours of 08.00 or after 00.30 the following morning on Sunday to Tuesday, and before 08.00 or after 01.30 the following morning on Wednesday and Thursday and before 08.00 or after 02.30 the following morning on Friday and Saturday

20/00515/FULL

The Owner shall not Implement the Planning Permission ( at 29-43 Oxford Atreet and 16-19 Soho Square )until planning permission has been granted for two residential units (to replace the lost residential units at the Property) at 98 New Bond Street

20/03471/FULL

Measured from 90 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 90 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

D6
3 times cited
MSG1
2 times cited
MSG2
2 times cited
S20
2 times cited
SD4
2 times cited
SS3
1 times cited
MC1
1 times cited
MR1
1 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

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.

Recent applications
Address
Reference
Type
Outcome
Date
26/00731/FULL
Full Planning Permission Application
2026-05-20
26/03161/FULL
Full Planning Permission Application
2026-05-13
26/00731/FULL
Full Planning Permission Application
2026-05-20
26/03161/FULL
Full Planning Permission Application
2026-05-13
Full application history locked
Subscribe to see all 124 decisions →
Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Gerald Eve LLP
2. DP9 Ltd
3. Jon Dingle Ltd
4. Rolfe Judd Planning
At a glance
OfficerMike Walton
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications124 (2020–26)
Approval rate93%
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, 2020–26. · 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 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 90 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.