Tristan Goldsmid.
Active — last recorded decision May 2026
A case officer at Westminster with an approval rate of 85% across 320 decided planning applications, spanning 11 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×.
Goldsmid's caseload (2022-era, under the newer numbered City Plan) spans Mayfair office-rooftop terraces and residential unit amalgamation/loss cases. On rooftop terrace extensions he treats already-lawful larger terraces at other levels of the same building as setting the reasonable envelope for hours and scale of a new terrace, rather than assessing each addition against a blank amenity standard. On residential unit loss (amalgamating two flats into one) he applies the City Plan's family-housing exception test precisely — checking whether the RESULTING unit is family-sized and whether either INPUT unit already was, rather than treating any net unit-count reduction as automatically unacceptable. He is willing to refuse on fire safety and amenity where an unauthorised, retrospective use has an established history of enforcement action for the same or related breaches.
· treats an already-lawful, larger terrace/use elsewhere in the same building as setting the reasonable envelope (hours, scale) for assessing a new addition, rather than a blank-standard test
· on residential unit amalgamation, applies the City Plan's family-housing exception precisely: checks whether the resulting unit is family-sized AND whether either input unit already was, rather than treating any net loss as automatically unacceptable
· credits design changes made following the Design Officer's specific comments (dormer changed to mansard) and notes when supporting technical assessments (daylight/sunlight) have or haven't been updated to match the revised scheme
· on retrospective/unauthorised uses, checks the property's specific enforcement history for related prior breaches before assessing the current application on its own terms
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: what terraces/uses are ALREADY lawful elsewhere in the same building, to set the reasonable envelope for a new addition
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether the resulting unit from an amalgamation is family-sized and whether either input unit already was, under the specific policy exception test
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: a property's specific enforcement history for related prior breaches before assessing a retrospective application
“Neither of the previous applications for terraces (16/10066/FULL and 18/02732/FULL) restricted the hours of use of these terraces and, considering these pre-existing lawful terraces, it is not considered reasonable to restrict the hours of the terraces in this case.”
22/01069/FULL
“Neither of the units being reconfigured are family sized units so the proposals would be considered acceptable in principle under Policy 8 part C2.”
22/01198/FULL
“Under the enforcement case 20/73762/U, an Enforcement Notice was served requiring the cease of use of part of the car park as a delivery hub for the storage, collection and return of mopeds for hot food delivery”
22/01715/FULL
Measured from 278 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 278 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
Show all 11 rows
Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2022–26.[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, 2022–26. · 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 278 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.