Development Intent
AtlasHackneyOfficersKelsi Bolstad
Case officer · Hackney Planning

Kelsi Bolstad.

Last recorded decision Mar 2021 — no decisions in this record since

A case officer at Hackney with an approval rate of 71% across 103 decided planning applications, spanning 20 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer103 decisions71% approvalSave
Hackney · 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 →
103
Applications
2020–21
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%74%202070%2021
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate71% · 39th of 52
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 reports98 officer reports parsed
6%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
6%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
2%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
60%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Hackney's average officer

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

Precedent & consistency
2.35× borough avg
Outlook & amenity
1.57× borough avg
Privacy & overlooking
1.29× borough avg
Bulk & massing
1.12× borough avg
Transport & parking
1.09× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Bolstad's basement-conversion assessments flag when required side-elevation drawings are simply missing and state this explicitly as blocking a full daylight assessment, rather than assuming acceptability by default. She checks new residential units for private amenity space provision as a discrete, named policy failure when absent.

Observable habits

· states explicitly when a required drawing (e.g. side elevation) is missing and that this blocks a complete assessment, rather than defaulting to acceptable

· names the absence of private amenity space for a new unit as a discrete, standalone policy failure

· flags a flood-risk-vulnerability RECLASSIFICATION (e.g. 'more vulnerable' to 'highly vulnerable') triggered by adding a self-contained basement unit

What their reports consistently look for

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether required side-elevation drawings are actually present — their absence is stated as blocking assessment, not assumed compliant

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a new residential unit has ANY private amenity space provided at all, flagged as a discrete failure when absent

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether adding a self-contained basement unit reclassifies the site's flood-risk vulnerability category

Assigned Kelsi Bolstad 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

It appears a potential window could have been shown on the side elevation, however there was no side elevation plans provided as part of the application, therefore this cannot be determined.

2020/0063

the proposal would not provide any private amenity space for the new residential unit, contrary to the requirements of the Nationally Described Space Standards.

2020/0063

The addition of a self-contained flat to the basement increases the vulnerability of the site to flooding from 'more vulnerable' to 'highly vulnerable'.

2020/0063

Measured from 98 published Hackney 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 98 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

LP1Part A will be applied having regard to the scale and location of the
62 times cited
LP2Development and Amenity
40 times cited
LP3Designated Heritage Assets
22 times cited
LP4Non Designated Heritage Assets
13 times cited
D3Allocation: Mixed-use including residential
11 times cited
7.8
10 times cited
7.6
9 times cited
DM1
7 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2020–21.[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
2021/0898
Householder Planning
Approved
2021-07-26
2021/0500
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2021-06-22
2021/0898
Householder Planning
Approved
2021-07-26
2021/0500
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2021-06-22
Full application history locked
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Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Redwoods Projects Ltd
2. SAM Planning Services Ltd
3. Hartleys Projects Ltd
4. Allen Planning ltd
At a glance
OfficerKelsi Bolstad
BoroughHackney
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications103 (2020–21)
Approval rate71%
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 Hackney planning register and published decision notices, 2020–21. · 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 Hackney 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 98 published Hackney 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.