Development Intent
AtlasCroydonOfficersWayne Spencer
Case officer · Croydon Planning

Wayne Spencer.

Active — last recorded decision May 2026

A case officer at Croydon with an approval rate of 47% across 135 decided planning applications, spanning 20 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer135 decisions47% approvalSave
Croydon · 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 →
135
Applications
2020–26
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%100%20200%202130%202239%2023100%202478%2025100%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate47% · 79th of 83
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 reports41 officer reports parsed
28%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
11%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
15%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
90%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Croydon's average officer

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

Bulk & massing
1.71× borough avg
Character & heritage
1.36× borough avg
Daylight & sunlight
1.21× borough avg
Trees & landscape
1.18× borough avg
Energy & sustainability
1.09× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Spencer's corpus is weighted towards commercial-to-residential conversions and major schemes, and he is meticulous about naming the exact Council team (Transportation Team, Early Years Team) that raised or resolved a concern, and describing the specific negotiated change (e.g. bollards added to restrict parking-space use) that satisfied that team's objection. He runs precise refuse/cycle-storage distance tests against the 20m/30m collection-distance and walking-distance norms and treats a scheme's failure to demonstrate compliance with either as an independent Policy DM13 conflict.

Observable habits

· names the specific Council team (Transportation Team, Early Years Team, Tree Officer) that raised or resolved an objection, and describes the exact negotiated design change (e.g. bollards, restricted-use condition) that satisfied it, rather than a general 'concerns were addressed' statement

· measures refuse/recycling walking distances against both the 20m collection-point norm and the 30m resident-walking-distance norm as two DISTINCT tests, flagging failure against either independently

· on affordable-housing viability disputes, tracks the applicant's own inconsistent figures across different submitted documents (e.g. Planning Statement vs Affordable Housing Statement) and notes which was subsequently confirmed as correct

What their reports consistently look for

· the specific Council team that raised an objection and the exact negotiated change (not just 'no objection'/'objection raised')

· both the 20m collection-point distance AND the 30m resident-walking-distance norm tested independently for refuse compliance

· consistency of an applicant's own affordable-housing figures across its Planning Statement and Affordable Housing Statement

Assigned Wayne Spencer 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 Council's Transportation Team now consider this arrangement to be acceptable and would require a planning condition stating that the parking spaces and the forecourt are to be used by staff only and not for pick-up or drop-off

20/00244/FUL

The furthest receptacle in the refuse/recycling store must be within 20m of the rear of the refuse vehicle which has not been achieved for the smaller refuse store

21/03040/OUT

Measured from 41 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.

Policy playbook — what this officer cites[3]

The policies this officer cites most in their own reports — times cited across 41 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

DM10Design and character
17 times cited
DM30Car and cycle parking in development
15 times cited
DM29Promoting sustainable travel and reducing congestion
11 times cited
D3
11 times cited
DM13Refuse and recycling
10 times cited
D6
10 times cited
SP2.8
7 times cited
SP4.1
6 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

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.

Recent applications
Address
Reference
Type
Outcome
Date
26/00325/FUL
Full planning permission
Approved
2026-05-12
26/01362/FUL
Full planning permission
2026-05-07
26/00325/FUL
Full planning permission
Approved
2026-05-12
26/01362/FUL
Full planning permission
2026-05-07
Full application history locked
Subscribe to see all 135 decisions →
Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Gouldstone and Co
2. SHW
3. Exedra Architects
4. MZA Planning
At a glance
OfficerWayne Spencer
BoroughCroydon
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications135 (2020–26)
Approval rate47%
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 Croydon planning register and published decision notices, 2020–26. · 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 Croydon 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 41 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.
Methodology is published in full so every number is traceable to its primary source.