James Udall.
Active — last recorded decision May 2026
A case officer at Croydon with an approval rate of 61% across 552 decided planning applications, spanning 19 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×.
Udall's reports run heavily on repeat-scheme townscape assessments and transport/fire-safety conditioning, and his prose consistently anchors a townscape verdict to the SPECIFIC Suburban Design Guide paragraph the scheme is tested against (dormer width/height rules, roof-extension setback rules) rather than a general design judgement. On refusals he pairs the affected neighbour's exact address with the specific harm mechanism (e.g. 'detrimental effect... by reason of visual intrusion'), and is willing to grant permission for minor departures from a cycle-parking standard where the shortfall can be secured by condition rather than treating it as fatal.
· cites the specific Suburban Design Guide paragraph number governing a design feature (e.g. dormer-window rules, roof-extension setback rules) rather than a general character judgement
· treats minor shortfalls against numeric standards (cycle parking spaces, fire-statement completeness) as conditionable rather than fatal, explicitly distinguishing them from the harder townscape/amenity tests
· on prior-approval GPDO refusals, restates the same short 'detrimental effect... by reason of visual intrusion' formulation consistently across similar telecoms/extension cases
· the specific Suburban Design Guide paragraph a dormer/roof-extension design is tested against, not a general character statement
· whether a cycle-parking or refuse-storage shortfall is a detail gap (conditionable) or a principle failure (not conditionable)
· the precise harm mechanism named for a refused neighbour ('visual intrusion', 'loss of light and outlook') tied to a specific address
“It is therefore considered the proposed development would have a detrimental effect on the amenities of neighbouring property by reason of visual intrusion and therefore it is recommended for prior approval to be refused”
20/00094/GPDO
“cycle storage detail can be secured by the imposition of a suitably worded planning condition”
20/01565/FUL
Measured from 233 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 233 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
Show all 19 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 233 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.