Development Intent
AtlasSouthwarkOfficersAndre Verster
Case officer · Southwark Planning

Andre Verster.

Active — last recorded decision May 2026

A case officer at Southwark with an approval rate of 89% across 36 decided planning applications, spanning 12 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer36 decisions89% approvalSave
Southwark · 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 →
36
Applications
2020–26
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%100%2020100%2021100%2022100%202371%202488%2025100%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate89% · 41st of 79
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 reports28 officer reports parsed
31%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
25%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
11%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
86%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Southwark's average officer

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

Flooding & drainage
3.06× borough avg
Transport & parking
2.8× borough avg
Trees & landscape
1.99× borough avg
Energy & sustainability
1.72× borough avg
Noise & disturbance
1.55× borough avg

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

Assigned Andre Verster 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

Environmental Protection Officers have expressed concern that five of the private balconies at the first to fourth floor of site 1 would experience noise levels above the recommended 55dBA for external private amenity space. However this is acceptable when considered in light of the wider benefits of the proposed development

20/AP/0434

The urban greening factor of 0.31 for the development as a whole would be below the target score of 0.4 for a development that is predominantly residential. In this case a score of 0.31 would be acceptable given the site constraints

20/AP/3482

Measured from 28 published Southwark 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 28 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

P14Design quality
6 times cited
P56Protection of amenity
6 times cited
P13Design of places
4 times cited
P21Conservation of the historic environment and
4 times cited
P65Improving air
4 times cited
P16Designing out crime
3 times cited
P50Highways impacts
3 times cited
P51Enhance walking networks and ensure safe, inclusive access
3 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2020–26.[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
22/AP/1095
Local Authority Development by Others
Withdrawn
2026-03-26
22/AP/1095
Local Authority Development by Others
Withdrawn
2026-03-26
Full application history locked
Subscribe to see all 36 decisions →
Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. BWCP Architects
2. Daykin Marshall Studio
3. Montagu Evans
4. Maddox Planning
At a glance
OfficerAndre Verster
BoroughSouthwark
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications36 (2020–26)
Approval rate89%
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 Southwark planning register and published decision notices, 2020–26. · 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 Southwark 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 28 published Southwark 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.