Development Intent
AtlasBarking and DagenhamOfficersEsther Rubinsohn
Case officer · Barking And Dagenham Planning

Esther Rubinsohn.

Active — last recorded decision Jan 2026

A case officer at Barking And Dagenham with an approval rate of 61% across 457 decided planning applications, spanning 20 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer457 decisions61% approvalSave
Barking And Dagenham · 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 →
457
Applications
2022–26
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%59%202257%202366%202461%202556%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate61% · 21st of 29
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 reports509 officer reports parsed
100%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
0%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
12%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
64%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Barking And Dagenham's average officer

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

Bulk & massing
1.54× borough avg
Transport & parking
1.54× borough avg
Noise & disturbance
1.17× borough avg
Outlook & amenity
0.99× borough avg
Daylight & sunlight
0.88× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Rubinsohn's caseload is dominated by householder extensions on Becontree Estate banjo cul-de-sacs and terraced rows, and she is unusually precise about CUMULATIVE massing — repeatedly calculating a proposal's depth as a combined figure against an EXISTING extension already on the property, rather than assessing the new element in isolation ('the existing rear extension has a depth of 3.5 metres and this application proposes for another 3 metre single storey rear extension...producing a combined extension of 6.5 metres from the original wall'). She is also attentive to the specific street-level pattern of a road — counting how many other houses on the same cul-de-sac or terrace row already have a similar extension type — before judging whether a proposal would be 'disproportionally large in comparison to the adjacent houses'.

Observable habits

· calculates a proposal's CUMULATIVE depth by adding it to any existing extension already on the property, rather than assessing only the new element in isolation, when judging disproportionality against the original dwelling

· counts how many other properties on the same specific road/cul-de-sac already have a comparable extension type before judging whether a scheme would appear disproportionate against that street's established pattern

· on minor SPD threshold breaches (e.g. 0.04m over the 3.65m depth guidance), explicitly quantifies the margin of breach rather than treating any breach as automatically unacceptable

What their reports consistently look for

· the combined/cumulative depth of a proposed extension plus any existing extension already built on the property, measured from the original rear wall

· how many comparable extensions already exist on the same cul-de-sac or terrace row, as the basis for a character-fit judgement

· the precise numeric margin by which a proposal exceeds or falls within the SPD's depth/eaves-height guidance

Assigned Esther Rubinsohn 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 existing rear extension has a depth of 3.5 metres and this application proposes for another 3 metre single storey rear extension to be added onto the back of this therefore producing a combined extension of 6.5 metres from the original wall of the dwellinghouse

22/01078/HSE

The depth of the proposed extension does exceed 3.65 metres however this is only by 0.04 metres therefore is very minimal

22/01157/HSE

Measured from 509 published Barking And Dagenham 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 509 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

D4
72 times cited
D6housing q ua lit y a nd st a nd a rd s, a nd / or it s relev a nt
68 times cited
D14
66 times cited
T5
57 times cited
CP3
54 times cited
BP11
53 times cited
H1
52 times cited
BP8
51 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

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.

Recent applications
Address
Reference
Type
Outcome
Date
24/01570/FULL
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2026-03-05
26/00071/HSE
Householder Planning Permission
Refused
2026-02-23
24/01570/FULL
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2026-03-05
26/00071/HSE
Householder Planning Permission
Refused
2026-02-23
Full application history locked
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Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Cityscape PA
2. Design Ghar Limited
3. Livarch Ltd
4. Arks Design Studio Limited
At a glance
OfficerEsther Rubinsohn
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications457 (2022–26)
Approval rate61%
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 Barking And Dagenham planning register and published decision notices, 2022–26. · 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 Barking And Dagenham 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 509 published Barking And Dagenham 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.