Development Intent
AtlasNewhamOfficersBlair Leung
Case officer · Newham Planning

Blair Leung.

Active — last recorded decision May 2026

A case officer at Newham with an approval rate of 91% across 111 decided planning applications, spanning 21 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer111 decisions91% approvalSave
Newham · 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 →
111
Applications
2025–26
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%95%202587%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate91% · 9th of 39
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 reports76 officer reports parsed
18%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
26%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
11%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
57%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Newham's average officer

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

Materials & detailing
1.36× borough avg
Bulk & massing
1.15× borough avg
Outlook & amenity
0.97× borough avg
Daylight & sunlight
0.9× borough avg
Character & heritage
0.84× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Leung is explicit about which permitted-development class or 'lawful by virtue of time' argument underlies an approval, and cross-checks previous evidence (photographs, correspondence) submitted for an earlier related application on the same site before accepting a claim about an existing structure.

Observable habits

· states explicitly whether an existing structure is being treated as lawful by virtue of time, and what evidence (photographs, plans) supports that

· cross-checks a claim made in the current application against evidence or correspondence submitted for a PRIOR related application on the same site

· flags the future permitted-development implication of an approval (e.g. potential to build above it) as a distinct 'further material consideration'

What their reports consistently look for

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: explicit evidence (photographs, correspondence) supporting a claim that an existing structure is lawful by virtue of time

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: consistency between the current submission and evidence given for a prior related application on the same site

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the future permitted-development consequence an approval would unlock, flagged as its own consideration

Assigned Blair Leung 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 same issue was revisited. The submitted existing and proposed plans clearly indicate that no outbuilding is present within the rear garden. To confirm this, the agent provided photographs of the rear garden, as requested, which demonstrate that the outbuilding has indeed been demolished

25/01665/PREHH

Of particular concern in this instance would be the ability to construct a further extension above the first-floor extension once built noting the provisions of Class B of the General Permitted Development Order

25/01417/PREHH

Measured from 76 published Newham 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 76 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

SP1Borough
3 times cited
SP3and J1). These are indicated in relevant spatial policies and more extensively but not
3 times cited
SP8Neighbourly development and living conditions
3 times cited
D3
2 times cited
D4
2 times cited
SC4
2 times cited
SC3Flood Risk and Drainage
1 times cited
SP5Heritage and other Successful
1 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2025–26.[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
26/00829/HH
Householder Application
Approved
2026-06-08
26/00832/HH
Householder Application
Approved
2026-06-08
26/00829/HH
Householder Application
Approved
2026-06-08
26/00832/HH
Householder Application
Approved
2026-06-08
Full application history locked
Subscribe to see all 111 decisions →
Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Archway Building Consultancy Ltd
2. Cityscape PTA
3. Design Ghar Limited
4. Livarch Ltd
At a glance
OfficerBlair Leung
BoroughNewham
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications111 (2025–26)
Approval rate91%
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 Newham planning register and published decision notices, 2025–26. · 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 Newham 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 76 published Newham 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.