London Borough of Kingston upon Thames

How Kingston upon Thames 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 330 applications tracked Window: Jan 2023 to Mar 2026 4 areas, 7 scheme types
Applications logged
330
Full, householder and minor resi since Jan 2023
Decided so far
299
136 approved, 163 refused, 16 withdrawn
Approval rate
45%
Under half of decided applications
Typical time to decide
8 weeks
Median determination time across all small sites

Kingston upon Thames, area by area

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

Kingston & North Kingston 83 New & Old Malden 62 Surbiton 122 South of the Borough 30 Approval rate 39% 51%
Spotlight

Kingston & North Kingston

Decisions
83
Approved
42
Refused
41
Approval rate
51%
Hover or tap any tile to see that area’s detail.
Tile positions are schematic, not to geographic scale. Each hex represents one of Kingston upon Thames’s sub-areas as defined in the council’s own planning framework.

Across Kingston upon Thames, approval rates move in a 12-point band from Surbiton (39%) up to Kingston & North Kingston (51%).

Which kinds of schemes get approved?

Bar length shows how many of each type were decided. The split shows the share approved versus refused. Conversion is by far the most common route in Kingston upon Thames, but it's end-of-terrace that sees the highest approval rate.

Approved Refused Bar length = sample size (max n=115)
Conversion
43%n=115
Demolish & rebuild
44%n=82
Mid-terrace
47%n=30
Extension
35%n=17
End-of-terrace
62%n=16
Mixed use
50%n=16
Backland
55%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
Mid-terrace, insertion into the middle of a terrace
Extension, rear, side or upward additions creating a new unit
End-of-terrace, new infill at the end of a terraced row
Mixed use, ground-floor commercial with homes above
Backland, new build on rear gardens or courtyard land

Why applications fail in Kingston upon Thames

Of every hundred reasons cited in refused decisions in Kingston upon Thames, design quality accounts for the biggest slice at 71%.

Design quality, bulk, massing, appearance 71
Transport, parking, safety, access 8
Unit sizes, below space standards 7
Delegated process 5
Policy, affordable housing, density targets 3
Open space, loss of garden or green space 2
Flood risk 2
Other, mixed reasons 2
Read as: “Of every 100 reasons cited in a refusal, 71 relate to design quality.” A single refusal often names two or more reasons. Based on 60 reasons extracted from refused decision notices.

In Kingston upon Thames, what gets a scheme refused is usually how it looks, not how many homes it adds.

Is Kingston upon Thames getting busier?

Decisions per quarter have held roughly steady since 2023, and approval rates have drifted upward over the same window.

Decisions per quarter
Approval rate (%)
0 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% borough avg 45% '23 Q2 · 43% · n=37 '23 Q3 · 50% · n=26 '23 Q4 · 43% · n=21 '24 Q1 · 50% · n=16 '24 Q2 · 20% · n=20 '24 Q3 · 25% · n=16 '24 Q4 · 48% · n=25 '25 Q1 · 33% · n=18 '25 Q2 · 47% · n=19 '25 Q3 · 54% · n=26 '25 Q4 · 40% · n=15 '26 Q1 · 53% · n=30 '26 Q2 · 64% · n=22 '23 Q2 '23 Q3 '23 Q4 '24 Q1 '24 Q2 '24 Q3 '24 Q4 '25 Q1 '25 Q2 '25 Q3 '25 Q4 '26 Q1 '26 Q2
Hover any bar or dot for exact quarterly values. The most recent quarter may be partial while pending decisions work through.

Interrogate the data yourself

Every figure on this page comes from Kingston upon Thames's own planning decisions. We publish the underlying data so you can check it, replicate our findings, or use it in your own tools. Verify against the council's planning portal before relying on any record, and tell us if you spot a problem.

Decided small-site applications, 1 to 9 units. Planning-decision layer only: Energy Performance Certificate, Land Registry and case-officer fields are held back. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Methodology.

Thinking about a specific site?

The dashboard gives you the borough picture. If you’re weighing a particular site, the Red Line Review is an independent second opinion before you commit six figures — one sentence on what I’d do if it were my money, and why.

Data sources & method

Applications. Sourced from the Greater London Authority (GLA) Planning Datahub and Kingston upon Thames 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 Red Line Review. See our Terms of Use for full details on how this data is compiled and the limits of its use.