Development Intent
AtlasNewhamOfficersSumeen Kaur Baweja
Case officer · Newham Planning

Sumeen Kaur Baweja.

Active — last recorded decision Dec 2025

A case officer at Newham with an approval rate of 87% across 370 decided planning applications, spanning 23 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer370 decisions87% 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 →
370
Applications
2022–25
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%92%202287%202387%202485%20250%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate87% · 13th 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 reports365 officer reports parsed
18%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
22%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
6%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
48%
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.

Bulk & massing
2× borough avg
Materials & detailing
1.41× borough avg
Daylight & sunlight
1.24× borough avg
Outlook & amenity
1.15× borough avg
Character & heritage
1.12× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Baweja works through the Y/N checklist headings quickly and pairs each with a short, orientation-based justification (e.g. citing which way a property faces to explain why sunlight loss is minimal). She is notably willing to approve amendments that were reduced in scale after negotiation, and her CLP refusals cite the specific General Permitted Development Order class and criterion that is not met.

Observable habits

· explains amenity conclusions by reference to the orientation of the terrace (east/west/north/south facing) rather than distance alone

· notes explicitly when a scheme was amended/reduced during assessment and treats that reduction as the basis for acceptability

· cites the specific GPDO Schedule/Part/Class when refusing a Certificate of Lawful Development

What their reports consistently look for

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the compass orientation of affected neighbouring windows/gardens as the basis for a daylight/sunlight conclusion

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: evidence a scheme was amended/reduced in scale during assessment before recommending approval

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the exact GPDO Schedule/Part/Class criterion not met, for a CLP refusal

Assigned Sumeen Kaur Baweja 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

Officers note the western orientation of the properties, meaning the loss of sunlight will be minimal to no.19 Cranberry Lane

22/01226/HH

under Schedule 2, Part 1, Class G Criteria of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 (as amended), the alteration of a chimney on a dwellinghouse is permitted

22/02222/CLP

Measured from 365 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 365 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

SP8Neighbourly development and living conditions
124 times cited
SP1Borough
123 times cited
D3
122 times cited
SP3and J1). These are indicated in relevant spatial policies and more extensively but not
118 times cited
D4
107 times cited
D1
105 times cited
SC4
97 times cited
SP2Healthy Neighbourhoods
92 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2022–25.[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
24/01354/COU
Change of Use
Refused
2026-09-25
25/01024/FUL
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2025-09-25
24/01354/COU
Change of Use
Refused
2026-09-25
25/01024/FUL
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2025-09-25
Full application history locked
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Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Civils Consulting Ltd
2. Baily Garner LLP
3. HOMEFRONT ARCHITECTURE LTD
4. Design Ghar Limited
At a glance
OfficerSumeen Kaur Baweja
BoroughNewham
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications370 (2022–25)
Approval rate87%
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, 2022–25. · 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 365 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.