Simon Brooksbank.
Recently active — last recorded decision May 2025
A case officer at Hackney with an approval rate of 71% across 57 decided planning applications, spanning 17 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 Hackney reports. Attention, not stance.
Mark = borough average (1×). Bar capped at 2×.
Brooksbank's refusals are explicit about being unable to make a full assessment where key information (acoustic reports, side elevations) is missing, stating this as the reason itself rather than proceeding to a design judgement on incomplete information. He treats the surrounding terrace's precedent — or lack of one — as decisive for bulky rear additions.
· states explicitly that a proper assessment CANNOT be made where key supporting information (acoustic/odour reports, side elevations) is missing, using that gap itself as the refusal basis
· checks whether comparable bulky rear additions exist anywhere else in the terrace before ruling a proposal 'wholly out of keeping'
· flags when a scheme fails to demonstrate biodiversity net gain as a discrete, named policy failure alongside design concerns
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether key supporting technical reports (acoustic, odour) or drawings (side elevations) are actually present — their absence is stated as blocking assessment, used as a refusal basis in its own right
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether ANY comparable bulky addition already exists elsewhere in the terrace before ruling a proposal wholly out of keeping
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a scheme achieves biodiversity net gain, treated as a discrete named failure ground alongside design
“in the absence of a comprehensive acoustic and odour report, officers are unable to make an accurate assessment in terms of noise and disturbance and potential odour impacts on neighbouring properties.”
2023/0592
“There are no other examples of first-floor extensions at the rear of the site up to the rear boundary along the terrace, and so would be wholly out of keeping with the surrounding area.”
2023/1741
“The development would therefore fail to achieve biodiversity net gain which is required for this development.”
2023/1741
Measured from 46 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.
The policies this officer cites most in their own reports — times cited across 46 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
Show all 17 rows
Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2023–25.[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 Hackney planning register and published decision notices, 2023–25. · 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 Hackney 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 46 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.