Phil Shipton.
Active — last recorded decision May 2026
A case officer at Richmond Upon Thames with an approval rate of 83% across 233 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 Richmond Upon Thames reports. Attention, not stance.
Mark = borough average (1×). Bar capped at 2×.
Shipton's reports lean heavily on named consultee input, in particular quoting the Council's Urban Design Officer's own words directly rather than summarising them, and on measured sight-line/separation-distance evidence for neighbour amenity conclusions (e.g. exact metre distances to specific neighbouring windows). He frequently tests garage/outbuilding dimensions against the Transport SPD's specific 3.0 x 6.0m internal garage standard to determine whether a structure genuinely functions as vehicle parking or should be treated as storage.
· quotes the Council's Urban Design Officer's assessment directly in quotation marks rather than paraphrasing it
· tests a garage or side extension's internal width/door width against the Transport SPD's specific 3.0 x 6.0m garage dimension standard to decide whether it can genuinely house a vehicle
· states an exact measured separation distance (e.g. '20.0m separation distance') between a new habitable window and named neighbouring properties to justify a no-overlooking conclusion
· notes where a design feature (e.g. rooflights lacking a parapet screen) is 'a relatively minor point' that does not change the overall conclusion, rather than omitting it
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a garage's actual internal dimensions meet the Transport SPD's 3.0 x 6.0m standard before it is credited as genuine vehicle parking
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the Urban Design Officer's or Conservation Officer's own wording on a scheme's heritage impact, quoted rather than paraphrased
· what this officer's reports consistently look for: a specific measured separation distance to the nearest affected neighbouring window before concluding overlooking is or is not significant
“The proposed garage has an internal width of approximately 2.25m and a door width of approximately 1.6m. Such a width is considered highly unlikely to accommodate any modern 4-wheel vehicle.”
24/0908/HOT
“the approximate 20.0m separation distance between the east facing windows of the proposed first floor bedroom and the rear of the dwellinghouses at No.64 and No.62 Myrtle Road, is sufficient to ensure unreasonable overlooking not occur”
24/1199/FUL
Measured from 245 published Richmond Upon Thames 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 245 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.
Show all 17 rows
Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2024–26.[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 Richmond Upon Thames planning register and published decision notices, 2024–26. · 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 — Richmond Upon Thames's decision-notice parsing is limited coverage, so no borough or officer figure is shown.
- [4]"How this officer decides", the policy playbook and all quotes — parsed from 245 published Richmond Upon Thames 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.