London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

How Kensington and Chelsea decides on small housing schemes

Every decision on sites of nine units or fewer, coded from the council's own register and refreshed each quarter. What gets built, what gets approved, and what trips applications up.

Last updated April 2026 355 applications tracked Window: Jan 2023 to Mar 2026 7 areas, 5 scheme types
Applications logged
355
Full, householder and minor resi since Jan 2023
Decided so far
223
188 approved, 35 refused, 66 withdrawn
Approval rate
84%
Roughly four in five decided applications
Typical time to decide
8 weeks
Median determination time across all small sites

Kensington and Chelsea, area by area

Colour shows how often applications get approved. Numbers show how many were decided. Hover or tap an area for detail.

North Kensington 12 Notting Hill 42 Holland Park & Kensington 48 Earl's Court 50 South Kensington 14 Brompton & Hans Town 36 Chelsea 21 Approval rate 76% 93%
Spotlight

North Kensington

Decisions
12
Approved
11
Refused
1
Approval rate
92%
Hover or tap any tile to see that area’s detail.
Tile positions are schematic, not to geographic scale. Each hex represents one of Kensington and Chelsea’s sub-areas as defined in the council’s own planning framework.

South Kensington approves 93% of applications. Chelsea, closer to 76%. Same borough, same policy, 17 percentage points of difference.

Which kinds of schemes get approved?

Bar length shows how many of each type were decided. The split shows the share approved versus refused. conversions are both the most common route in Kensington and Chelsea and the type with the highest approval rate.

Approved Refused Bar length = sample size (max n=78)
Conversion
94%n=78
Demolish & rebuild
75%n=69
Extension
86%n=14
Mid-terrace
77%n=13
Mixed use
91%n=11
Scheme types with fewer than 10 decisions in the window are not shown here.
Conversion, dividing one home into flats
Demolish & rebuild, existing building replaced with new homes
Extension, rear, side or upward additions creating a new unit
Mid-terrace, insertion into the middle of a terrace
Mixed use, ground-floor commercial with homes above

Why applications fail in Kensington and Chelsea

Of every hundred reasons cited in refused decisions in Kensington and Chelsea, design quality accounts for the biggest slice at 36%.

Design quality, bulk, massing, appearance 36
Other, mixed reasons 16
Transport, parking, safety, access 11
Amenity, overlooking, daylight, noise 10
Heritage, conservation areas, listed setting 7
Policy, affordable housing, density targets 5
Unit sizes, below space standards 5
Infrastructure, access, parking, drainage 5
Open space, loss of garden or green space 3
Delegated process 1
Read as: “Of every 100 reasons cited in a refusal, 36 relate to design quality.” A single refusal often names two or more reasons. Based on 73 reasons extracted from refused decision notices.

In Kensington and Chelsea, what gets a scheme refused is usually how it looks, not how many homes it adds.

Thinking about a specific site?

The dashboard gives you the borough picture. If you have a particular address in mind, we can tell you what the comparable decisions say about your odds, density and capacity.

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Data sources & method

Applications. Sourced from the Greater London Authority (GLA) Planning Datahub and Kensington and Chelsea Council’s online planning register. Covers full planning, householder, and minor residential applications of nine units or fewer decided in the window shown above.

Decisions and timing. Outcomes and determination times are taken from the council’s published decision notices.

Refusal reasons. Extracted from refused decision notices that were publicly available. Not every refusal has a readable notice, so totals count all refusals but the reason breakdown covers only those we could read.

Scheme classification. Site types (conversion, demolish & rebuild, extension, and so on) are coded from application descriptions and drawings. Areas are mapped from postcodes and ward names using the council’s own sub-area definitions.

Update frequency. Refreshed quarterly. Next refresh: July 2026.

Nothing here is planning advice. Outcomes are historical and do not predict individual cases. Approval rates vary with site specifics, policy context, and case officer. For a read on a particular site, request a Site Assessment. See our Terms of Use for full details on how this data is compiled and the limits of its use.