VSTFS 2015: Unable to delete remote branch

Update 2: There's a great executive summary for how to delete remote branches provided in this previous stackoverflow answer. One thing that's left out I think is that in order to execute the command $ git push -d <remote_name> <branch_name> you'll need permissions to "force-push" to the branch.

Update: This may be a problem with git's case insensitivity. See the blog post here: https://tosbourn.com/git-branches-seem-to-be-case-insensitive/

Original Answer:
I think git push origin :development will do it. You can think of this as "push null to development" -- in other words, delete the branch.

I believe when you execute git branch -d -r origin/<branch name> you are only removing your remote tracking branch, which is stored locally.