Planning permission in Kensington and Chelsea

Planning in Kensington and Chelsea — the detail

The Royal Borough is one of the most planning-constrained places to build in Britain. Conservation areas blanket almost the entire borough — from the stucco terraces of The Boltons, Cheyne and Hans Town to the communal-garden squares of the Ladbroke estate and the artists' studios of Norland and Avondale in the north — and a large share of the stock is statutory-listed, so listed building consent runs alongside planning permission for even internal change across much of Chelsea, Brompton and Kensington.

Kensington and Chelsea is basement-policy territory, and its rules are among the strictest anywhere. Local Plan Policy CL7 and the 2016 Basements SPD limit excavation beneath a house or its garden to a single storey, require that no basement covers more than 75% of the garden (and often considerably less), and demand a structural method statement and a basement impact assessment covering hydrology and neighbouring stability. This is why basement refusals and appeals cluster in the borough.

On top of conservation-area controls, the borough carries scores of property-specific Article 4 directions removing permitted development rights, so the address-level check matters more here than almost anywhere. With values among the highest in the country, the economics support deep, high-specification schemes — but permitted development is rarely the route. Assume a full application, and budget for heritage and structural input from the outset.

Policy detail lives in the Kensington and Chelsea local plan and applications are submitted via the Kensington and Chelsea planning portal.