Land by postcode · SW area · SW3
What the open records say about the SW3 postcode district in Greater London: recent sales, planning designations and controls, and the council that decides applications. District-level facts to read before you sell or develop a plot in Kensington and Chelsea, London.
Residential sales recorded by HM Land Registry between 2024-08 and 2026-07. This is market context for the district, not a land valuation: what a plot is worth depends on what can be built on it, which these figures do not show.
Sales in 24 months
522
Median sale price
£1,350,000
Median £ per m² of floor area
£22,417
Median, last 12m vs prior 12m
-24.8%
£1,530,062 → £1,150,000
Mix of sales: 0% detached, 1% semi-detached, 25% terraced, 74% flats.
New-build sales 2023–2024: 4 of 630 (1%). A rough proxy for recent building activity: these are homes sold by builders, not development sites.
For each designation on the planning.data.gov.uk register, the share of the 868 live postcodes in SW3 whose centroid falls inside it. This measures postcodes, not land area, and says nothing about any individual plot.
624 of 868 postcodes
Royal Hospital · Chelsea · Cheyne · Thurloe/Smith's Charity · Chelsea Park/Carlyle and 3 more
842 of 868 postcodes
8 separate directions recorded, each removing particular permitted development rights within a defined area.
No postcodes in SW3 fall inside: Green Belt, National Landscape (AONB), National Park.
Flood zones, tree preservation orders, local plan allocations, settlement boundaries and non-designated heritage are not included here and are checked in a full assessment.
72% of postcodes fall within a conservation area. Inside one, demolition needs consent, some permitted development rights are reduced, and new work is assessed against the character and appearance of the area.
97% of postcodes are covered by an Article 4 direction, which removes specific permitted development rights in that area, so changes that are automatic elsewhere need a planning application there.
These are district-level facts. The free assessment checks your actual boundary against the same registers and the local plan and tells you plainly what they mean for your plot.
Decided planning applications in SW3 since 2021, from the council registers, grouped by the kind of scheme a landowner might be weighing up. Extensions, conditions and tree works are left out. Counts, not estimates.
Taken from the units table on the planning form itself, so this is homes actually created, not a reading of the description. 3 decided since 2021, typically 147 days to a decision.
3 of 3
approved
47% across London
8 homes approved of 8 applied for
Approved examples
237-239 King's Road, London (4 new homes)
Refurbishment of existing residential accommodation and replanning of layouts to deliver 4 residential units
Approved 2024-10-04, Kensington and Chelsea ref PP/23/08242
By the kind of plot, from the wording of each proposal:
6 decided since 2021, 1 refused, typically 83 days to a decision
3 of 6
approved, 50%
43% across London
Approved examples
Flat B, 119 Flood Street
Removal of covering and structure of main roof; construction of flat roof to be used as roof terrace; construction of water tank housing at ...
Approved 2022-02-16, Kensington and Chelsea ref PP/21/08124
29 Cheyne Place, London
Demolition of existing building and construction of 6-storey building, plus basement level to provide 5no. residential units (Use Class C3)....
Approved 2023-01-25, Kensington and Chelsea ref PP/22/01587
93 Cadogan Gardens, London
Removal of plant room from existing location on lower ground floor. Repair of coal pit on lower ground floor of front house. Repair or recon...
Approved 2025-06-09, Kensington and Chelsea ref PP/25/01759
3 decided since 2021, typically 114 days to a decision
2 of 3
approved
45% across London
Approved examples
12 Anderson Street, London
Conversion of garage into part residential accommodation and part storage accessible from street, new glazed enclosure connecting garage to ...
Approved 2022-03-16, Kensington and Chelsea ref PP/21/00827
First and Second Floors, 344 King's Road
Change of use of first and second floor levels from a live/work unit (Sui Generis) to residential use (Class C3)
Approved 2023-11-22, Kensington and Chelsea ref PP/23/05054
Decided planning applications (not extensions, conditions or tree works) in this postcode district from the councils' own registers, classified by the wording of each proposal. Counts, not estimates; where a class has fewer than three applications it is not shown.
Kensington and Chelsea covers 96% of the sampled postcodes in SW3.
Draw your boundary, tell us what you own, and an architect checks it against these registers and the local plan. Free, no obligation, and you get a straight written answer.
It depends on where the plot sits, not on the district average. In SW3, 0% of postcodes are in the Green Belt, 72% in a conservation area. Outside those designations the questions that decide it are whether the plot is inside or adjoining the settlement boundary in the local plan, whether it has its own road access, and what is next to it. A plot on the edge of a village or town with access has the best chance; an open field outside the settlement boundary rarely gets consent for housing whatever the market is doing.
Often, yes. 97% of postcodes in SW3 are under an Article 4 direction (8 separate directions), which withdraws particular permitted development rights, so an outbuilding, extension or change of use that is automatic elsewhere needs an application there. Outside those areas, permitted development applies to houses and their gardens but not to agricultural land or paddocks, where a new building or a new use normally needs permission or prior approval.
Developers look at three things before they talk about price: whether the plot is outside the Green Belt and any National Landscape, whether it sits inside or beside the settlement boundary, and what finished homes sell for. In SW3 the median sale is £1,350,000, and only 1% of 2023–2024 sales were new-build homes, so builders have been quiet here. A single plot usually goes to a local builder or a self-builder; a site for five or more homes attracts regional housebuilders, normally through an option or a conditional contract rather than an outright purchase, so the price you see quoted is not the price you receive.
There is no district figure for land, because a plot's value comes from what can be built on it, not from where it is. As a guide, a serviced plot with consent for one house commonly sells for around a third of the finished house value, which in SW3 would be measured against a £1,350,000 median sale. The same plot without consent, or inside the Green Belt, is worth a small fraction of that, and a paddock with no realistic route to consent is worth agricultural or amenity value only. The free check tells you which of those your plot is before you talk to anyone about a price.
Three places: Kensington and Chelsea's local plan and its policies map for the settlement boundary and allocations, the council's planning register for what has been approved or refused on neighbouring land, and planning.data.gov.uk for the national designations. That is an evening's work if you know what you are looking for. The alternative is to draw your boundary on this site: an architect checks it against the same records and writes back within 48 hours with a plain answer, free and without obligation.
Computed from open-data records; district-level, not plot-level measurements. Sales: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (2024-08-01 to 2026-07-31), © Crown copyright, Open Government Licence. Designations: planning.data.gov.uk (OGL), retrieved 2026-09-05; conservation areas and Article 4 directions are made locally and published on that national register. Postcode centroids: OS Code-Point Open 2026.3.0, contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Place name is the most common post town in the sales records. Figures computed 2026-09-06.