Bexley: cooling planning decisions

Bexley has decided 65 planning applications mentioning air conditioning or other cooling plant: 58 approved, 7 refused.

A further 11 applications mentioning cooling plant sit on Bexley's record with no decision against them - still live, withdrawn, or closed some other way. None of them are in the rate below, and that cuts both ways: a withdrawal is an applicant changing their mind, not a council saying no.

That works out at 89.2% across 65 decisions covering all development types, 20 of them householder applications. Roughly one application in eight does not get through, which is enough to make siting and presentation worth genuine attention.

The scope matters as much as the number. Commercial and mixed-use plant makes up a large share of any council's cooling caseload, so an all-development rate is a weaker guide to a domestic application than its size suggests.

The householder subset is large enough here to stand on its own, which is unusual: Bexley approved 17 of 20 householder applications, a rate of 85%. That is the closest figure on this page to a homeowner's actual position.

Not one of Bexley's decided applications names an air-to-air system in its own description - the equipment that both heats and cools, and the only category with a permitted-development route on a house. That is the national picture in miniature, and worth knowing before you assume your case officer will recognise the category on sight.

Since 2025-05-29, England's permitted-development rules let a house fit an air-to-air heat pump, which heats as well as cools, without a planning application in many cases, within set size, siting and noise limits. A unit that only cools has no equivalent route and needs a full application whatever the property.

That is why the decisions above matter more than they would have before the change. Every cooling-only installation now crosses a planning officer's desk, so the council's posture is not background information, it is the decision.

Flats are the sharpest exception, here as everywhere in England: the permitted-development right for an outdoor unit belongs to the house rather than to a flat within it, so a flat will usually need freeholder or managing-agent consent as well as planning permission.

What those refusals were FOR is a national question at the volume of officer reasoning currently published, not a council-level one, and we do not pretend otherwise. Both findings are set out with their sample sizes: why cooling applications get refused and the conditions councils attach to an approval.

Every council we can publish a figure for is listed on the council index.

Applications are identified from their own description, so every count on these pages means applications mentioning cooling equipment, not every cooling installation in the area. An application that fitted the same kit but described it as external plant is not in these figures, which makes them a floor on activity rather than a census.

Each application is assigned to Bexley through the postcode on the application itself. Of the 76 applications recorded for this authority, 100% carry a location we could resolve; nationally 1738 of 19260 applications could not be tied to a district at all and sit outside every figure on this site rather than being quietly assigned somewhere.

What this page cannot tell you is what will happen at your address. It has no view of your elevation, your neighbours' windows, whether your home sits in a conservation area, or whether it is a listed building - and a neighbour's approval settles none of those. This is indicative guidance drawn from public planning records, not legal advice: confirm the final position with your Local Planning Authority before you install.