Kensington and Chelsea: cooling planning decisions

Kensington and Chelsea has decided 27 planning applications mentioning air conditioning or other cooling plant, 27 of them approved and 0 refused. That is a slim record, just past the point at which we will publish a rate from it at all.

Kensington and Chelsea's record holds 69 more that never reached a determination, whether because they remain live or because the applicant pulled them. Everything below excludes them, so the rate describes determined cases only.

That is an approval rate of 100% across 27 decisions covering every development type, 5 of them householder applications - close to universal. A rate this high usually says as much about what gets submitted as about what gets waved through: schemes likely to fail tend to be withdrawn rather than decided, and a withdrawal is not in this denominator.

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.

We stop short of a householder-only percentage for Kensington and Chelsea. At 5 decided householder applications the sample is too thin, and a rate drawn from it would read as far more certain than the evidence allows.

One caveat that applies throughout: the deep historical backfill has not yet covered Kensington and Chelsea, which makes 27 a floor, not a total. The rate is drawn from what we hold, a recent slice rather than the full history. Our records for Kensington and Chelsea begin in January 2026, so nothing here describes a change over time.

The air-to-air heat pump, which heats as well as cools and is the only equipment that can be permitted development on a house, appears in none of Kensington and Chelsea's decided applications by name. Nationally the count is similarly close to zero: this is a category planning departments have barely met.

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 Kensington and Chelsea through the postcode on the application itself. Of the 96 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.