Helen McGuinness.
Last recorded decision Jan 2024 — no decisions in this record since
A case officer at Barnet with an approval rate of 72% across 191 decided planning applications, spanning 27 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 Barnet reports. Attention, not stance.
Mark = borough average (1×). Bar capped at 2×.
McGuinness handles a heavy load of Prior Notification (PNH) applications and is unusually thorough in stating what a PNH scheme would have been refused for even when the application itself is procedurally inapplicable ('Had the application been applicable it would have been refused under the following impact on amenity'), preserving the substantive reasoning rather than dismissing the case purely on process grounds. She also gives more space than most colleagues to summarising the applicant/agent's rebuttal of neighbour objections verbatim before giving her own view.
· states the substantive amenity reasoning a PNH application would have been refused for even when the determination is procedural (process not applicable), rather than stopping at the procedural finding
· quotes the applicant/agent's own rebuttal to a neighbour objection at length before giving an independent officer view
· identifies the specific raised-platform or level-change element of a scheme as the one Class A criterion that fails, isolating it from an otherwise-compliant proposal
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the substantive amenity harm a scheme would face even where the immediate determination is procedural, so the reasoning is preserved for any resubmission
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a raised element specifically exceeds the 0.3 metre 'raised platform' threshold under Class A.1(k), isolated from the rest of the scheme's compliance
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the applicant/agent's own written rebuttal to each neighbour objection, quoted rather than summarised, before reaching an independent view
“Had the application been considered on its merits, the proposed single storey rear extension by reason of its size, siting and rearward projection is considered to have an adverse impact on the visual and residential amenities”
20/1684/PNH
“the application would not comply with Class A.1(k) of Part 1 of Schedule 2… as the "raised" in relation to a platform means a platform with a height greater than 0.3 metres”
20/1987/PNH
Measured from 162 published Barnet 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 162 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
Show all 27 rows
Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2020–24.[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 Barnet planning register and published decision notices, 2020–24. · 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 Barnet 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 162 published Barnet 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.