Kensington and Chelsea: air conditioning planning permission

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 cooling-only air conditioning unit does not get that route and needs a full planning application in Kensington and Chelsea whatever the property, because on its own it only cools.

Picking a system in Kensington and Chelsea therefore decides your planning path as much as your comfort. A unit that heats and cools opens up the permitted-development route on a house; one that only cools never does. Around 69% of Kensington and Chelsea's EPC-certified homes sit inside a conservation area (Oxford Gardens, Norland, Ladbroke among them), so checking the exact boundary before siting an outdoor unit is the single most useful planning step here.

Flats are the sharpest exception here as everywhere in England: the permitted-development right for an outdoor unit sits with the house, not the flat, so a Kensington and Chelsea flat will usually need both freeholder or managing-agent consent and planning permission.

Roughly 69.4% of properties in Kensington and Chelsea fall inside a conservation area - Oxford Gardens, Norland and Ladbroke among the named ones, a genuinely high figure. Inside those boundaries the permitted-development route a house would otherwise rely on is narrowed or withdrawn, so a front or side-facing unit will usually need the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's sign-off.

100% of the 27 planning applications mentioning air conditioning or other cooling plant that Kensington and Chelsea has decided were approved, a figure covering all development types and including 5 householder applications.

The same figures as counts are 27 approved and 0 refused.

A householder-only rate would be the more useful number, and Kensington and Chelsea has not yet decided enough of them for one: 5 is below the sample size we publish a percentage from.

Worth knowing: Kensington and Chelsea is one of the authorities our record does not yet reach far back into, which makes 27 a floor, not a total.

One more thing about the method: applications are identified from their own description, so the Kensington and Chelsea figures cover applications mentioning cooling equipment and will understate rather than overstate real activity.

What actually gets refused, and what councils attach when they approve, is a national picture rather than a local one at the volume of officer reasoning currently published. We set both out with their sample sizes: why cooling applications get refused and the conditions councils attach.

You can also compare what each council decides, where enough decisions exist to publish a figure.

The Kensington and Chelsea property types we profile average roughly 53 dB of daytime background noise, and a unit is judged against that baseline rather than in the abstract.

So siting decides more than the equipment does. Moving the outdoor unit away from a neighbour's window and off the boundary line is the single change that most often rescues a borderline application.

None of this is a dealbreaker: councils in Kensington and Chelsea approve outdoor units for homes like these all the time. Around 69.4% of local properties sit inside a conservation area, so it is a step to plan for rather than a formality. Being close to a listed building - around 15.8% of homes here sit within 30 metres of one is not the same as your home being listed, and public data can flag conservation status without settling it. This is indicative guidance, not legal advice: confirm the final position with your Local Planning Authority before you install.