Development Intent
AtlasSuttonOfficersEmmanuel Agyei
Case officer · Sutton Planning

Emmanuel Agyei.

Active — last recorded decision May 2026

A case officer at Sutton with an approval rate of 82% across 1,613 decided planning applications, spanning 18 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer1,613 decisions82% approvalSave
Sutton · 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 →
1,613
Applications
2020–26
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%71%202077%202177%202281%202382%202490%202589%2026
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate82% · 3rd of 18
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 reports1152 officer reports parsed
3%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
4%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
4%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
52%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Sutton's average officer

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

Precedent & consistency
1.94× borough avg
Bulk & massing
1.09× borough avg
Character & heritage
1.05× borough avg
Transport & parking
0.8× borough avg
Privacy & overlooking
0.76× borough avg

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

How they reason — coded from their reports

Agyei's caseload spans everyday householder extensions through larger infill and HMO schemes, and his reasoning consistently separates a scheme's land-use principle from its design detail as two distinct tests — he will find a proposal acceptable 'in land use terms' by reference to an Area of Potential Intensification or prior non-objection to the principle, and only then move to a second, independent paragraph on scale, massing and subordination to the host building. His refusals tend to be grounded in a demonstrable loss of protected floorspace (industrial land, retail frontage) or a failure to substantiate an unusual land-use claim (e.g. an unsupported 'sui generis' assertion), rather than pure design harm, and he is meticulous about cross-referencing Local Plan floorspace/space-standard tables (Policy 9, Table 3.3) against the submitted square-metreage before concluding a scheme complies.

Observable habits

· splits land-use principle and design/amenity into two separately-reasoned tests, rather than folding both into one paragraph, even for straightforward householder schemes

· cross-checks submitted internal floor areas and room dimensions against the exact London Plan/Local Plan Policy 9 space-standard tables (e.g. '124 square metres' against an 8-person minimum) before concluding on layout acceptability

· on refusals concerning a use-class dispute, requires the applicant's own asserted use (e.g. 'sui generis') to be evidenced from the site's own planning history rather than accepted on the Design and Access Statement's word alone

What their reports consistently look for

· a documented planning history establishing the lawful/protected use of the site before accepting a change-of-use or 'sui generis' claim

· the precise submitted internal floor area and room dimensions checked against the London Plan/Local Plan minimum space-standard table for the relevant unit size

· whether the Council's own consultees (Highways, Sustainability, Biodiversity, Waste Management) have raised objection, cited by name, before concluding each topic paragraph

Assigned Emmanuel Agyei 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 applicant asserts in his Design and Access Statement (Statementment regarding reasons for refusal) that the site is 'sui generis'. However, there is no evidence to support that assertion

DM2020/00985

With the site located within the Sutton Area of Potential Intensification coupled with the fact that no objection to the principle of development has previously been raised at the site, it is considered that the proposed redevelopment of the site to provide two residential units would comply with the above policies

DM2020/00071

Measured from 1152 published Sutton 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 1152 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

29Protecting Amenity
497 times cited
28Character and Design
460 times cited
D12
254 times cited
37Parking
51 times cited
36Transport Impact
51 times cited
31Carbon and Energy
42 times cited
9Housing Sizes and Standards
37 times cited
D6
33 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
DM2026/00315
Full Application
Approved
2026-06-04
DM2026/00310
Householder Application
Approved
2026-06-04
DM2026/00315
Full Application
Approved
2026-06-04
DM2026/00310
Householder Application
Approved
2026-06-04
Full application history locked
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Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. Happy Building Ltd
2. Planning Additions
3. CANOPY PLANNING SERVICES LTD
4. CGA Design & Build
At a glance
OfficerEmmanuel Agyei
BoroughSutton
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications1,613 (2020–26)
Approval rate82%
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 Sutton 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 Sutton 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 1152 published Sutton 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.