Our main planning activities

Planning consultations: we participate in national and local planning consultations including proposals to change the national, London-wide and Borough planning policies.

Planning applications: we review the weekly planning list issued by the council of all the planning applications and planning appeals and respond when necessary.

Member assistance: we study specific planning applications which our members ask for assistance – although we are not professional advisers in planning.

Dialogue with councillors and planning department: we meet often with the planning department officers and councillors. We comment on changes of procedures and try to make sure that views of residents are heard and understood.

Sounding Board: we meet with our affiliated local residents and conservation societies to discuss planning issues important to us and agree actions to be taken. We also refer to affiliated group’s planning applications which may affect their area.

The planning process

This page explains how the council deals with planning applications, from the stage before an application is submitted until the final decision. Information is given on each stage together with actions points and guidance to deal with supporting or objecting to applications, as well as how to make representations to a planning committee

read more

Consultations

The government requires that the local authorities consult the public, the “stakeholders”, when developing or altering certain policies or plans. The Kensington Society is very active in the consultation process. As this is the front-end of the planning process, it is important that there is early engagement with us as well as any of the local “affected” parties.

read more

Planning news

Newcombe House finally approved

After seven years of applications, refusals, approvals and three public hearings, housing secretary Robert Jenrick finally approved the highly debated Newcombe House complex on 25 June. He agreed with the two planning inspectors and the London mayor, that that the benefits of the scheme clearly outweigh its impact on listed buildings, conservation areas and local heritage.
read more

Newcombe House: Third public hearing

The Newcombe House scheme’s third public hearing was held in the Grand Plaza Kensington Hotel during the first and second weeks of November. A decision from the Planning Inspectorate is expected in April or May.
read more

Update: New Kensington Forum application approved by Khan

After a public hearing in City Hall on Friday 21 June, London mayor Sadiq Khan decided to grant planning permission for the revised Kensington Forum Hotel application, subject to the completion of a legal agreement. His decision, which includes the approval of a new 102 meter high hotel that will be the highest building in the borough, went against the wishes of all local residents' associations, the RBKC council, and Kensington's MP, Emma Dent Coad.
read more

City Hall refuses the “caviar care” development

On 23 April 2019, the proposed luxury retirement development on the site of the former Heythrop College, by some detractors labelled “caviar care”, was refused on behalf of the London mayor Sadiq Khan by Jules Pipe, deputy mayor for planning, as the mayor’s office regards the entire development to be use class C3 (self-contained single household homes), and as such it should include 35% affordable housing. The plan only includes five affordable flats, although the scheme consists of 142 luxury retirement flats plus three town houses.
read more

Controversial Heythrop College plan approved

On 27 November, the council’s planning committee approved the very controversial plans to turn the site of the former Heythrop College on the south side of Kensington Square into a 142-flat luxury development for very wealthy pensioners. It is now up to the London mayor to either approve or "call in" the application and make his own decision. More than a month before the planning committee's approval, he announced that the development wouldn’t comply with London’s affordable housing policies.
read more

Kensington’s highest building stopped – for now

After a six hour long meeting on 27 September, the council's planning committee said no to a plan which would have created the borough's highest building, 102 metres, on the site currently occupied by the Kensington Forum Hotel at 97-102 Cromwell Road. But this doesn't mean that it still can't happen: London's mayor, Sadiq Khan, may decide to overrule the council's decision, and if he doesn't, the developer may appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.
read more

Sadiq Khan approves Newcombe House

On Tuesday 18 September, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, decided to approve the plans for the Newcombe House site, thereby overruling the RBKC planning committee's refusal and putting an end to a planning battle that has raged since March 2016. Khan's main reason for approving is that the plan now includes 22 genuinely affordable rented flats on site, plus a further 10 off site.
read more

Page updated 16/07/2021