Barry Valentine.
Active — last recorded decision May 2026
A case officer at Croydon with an approval rate of 68% across 70 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 Croydon reports. Attention, not stance.
Mark = borough average (1×). Bar capped at 2×.
Valentine's caseload spans a wide range of infrastructure applications (telecoms masts, substations, EV charging), and he is distinctive for explicitly citing NAMED prior/pending planning applications on adjoining sites (with their own references) to establish the streetscene baseline against which a new structure's height or scale is judged, particularly for masts and substations on commercial corners. On residential unit-loss applications he is willing to weigh a net loss of ONE home against the fact that the replacement unit meets a genuine strategic need (a 3-bed family home), treating the trade-off explicitly rather than applying SP2.2's no-net-loss principle as an absolute bar.
· cites named prior or pending planning applications on adjoining sites, with their own references, to establish the streetscene baseline height/scale against which a new mast, substation or plant structure is judged
· explicitly weighs a net loss of one dwelling unit against the strategic benefit of the replacement providing a genuinely needed unit type (e.g. a 3-bed family home), rather than treating a no-net-loss policy as an absolute bar
· measures the specific distance in metres from a new plant/vent/substation installation to the nearest neighbouring habitable window as the operative amenity test
· named prior or pending planning applications (with their own references) on adjoining sites establishing the height/scale baseline for new infrastructure
· whether a net loss of one dwelling unit is offset by the strategic benefit of the replacement unit meeting a genuinely needed housing type
· the precise distance in metres from a new plant, vent or substation installation to the nearest neighbouring habitable window
“has confirmed that there are no existing installations that could be upgraded to meet the coverage requirements, and that surrounding sites have been fully optimised”
21/01296/FUL
“this needs to be weighed against that the fact that by losing a unit, the borough would gain a three bed unit, which there is a great need for”
21/03753/FUL
Measured from 36 published Croydon 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 36 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 Croydon 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 Croydon 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 36 published Croydon 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.