Cheltenham: cooling planning decisions

Cheltenham has decided 80 planning applications mentioning air conditioning or other cooling plant: 74 approved, 6 refused.

A further 9 applications mentioning cooling plant sit on Cheltenham's record with no decision against them - still live, withdrawn, or closed some other way.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.

Expressed as a rate: 92.5% of 80 decisions, spanning all development types and including 14 householder applications. A strong record, and not an automatic one.

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.

There is no householder-only rate on this page. Cheltenham has decided 14 householder applications mentioning cooling plant, below the sample size we publish a percentage from, so the count stands on its own and the rate is withheld.

Not one of Cheltenham'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.

Cheltenham has decided 48 applications mentioning an air-source heat pump and approved 93.8%, near enough to its cooling-plant figure to be the same posture.

These two figures are never added, averaged or read as one. Most air-source schemes heat rather than cool, and an application mentioning both sits in both counts.

The distinction is the whole point: an air-to-air heat pump, which heats as well as cools, can be permitted development on a house, and a cooling-only unit cannot.

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 Cheltenham through the postcode on the application itself. Of the 89 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.