Land by postcode · W area · W2
What the open records say about the W2 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 City of Westminster, 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
766
Median sale price
£857,140
Median £ per m² of floor area
£14,167
Median, last 12m vs prior 12m
-16.7%
£900,000 → £750,000
Mix of sales: 0% detached, 2% semi-detached, 10% terraced, 88% flats.
New-build sales 2023–2024: 97 of 995 (10%). 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 1125 live postcodes in W2 whose centroid falls inside it. This measures postcodes, not land area, and says nothing about any individual plot.
813 of 1125 postcodes
Bayswater · Westbourne · Queensway · Pembridge · Hallfield Estate and 3 more
1079 of 1125 postcodes
8 separate directions recorded, each removing particular permitted development rights within a defined area.
No postcodes in W2 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.
96% 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 W2 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. 83 decided since 2021, 28 refused, typically 132 days to a decision.
47 of 83
approved, 57%
47% across London
102 homes approved of 184 applied for
Approved examples
25 Bathurst Mews London W2 2SB (1 new home)
Partial demolition and redevelopment of an existing single-family dwelling behind a retained and altered façade including a new basement lev...
Approved 2021-11-29, Westminster ref 21/00048/FULL
12 Queensborough Terrace London W2 3TB (1 new home)
Removal of existing mansard at fourth floor and rebuild fourth floor as a sheer floor; erection of a new fifth floor mansard to form additio...
Approved 2022-11-11, Westminster ref 22/01101/FULL
First Floor And Second Floor Maisonette 42 Westbourne Terrace London W2 3UH (2 new homes)
Conversion of the existing upper floor maisonette into 1 x three bedroom flat at first floor and 1 x 2 bedroom flat at second floor and asso...
Approved 2022-08-26, Westminster ref 22/01173/FULL
By the kind of plot, from the wording of each proposal:
18 decided since 2021, 6 refused, typically 249 days to a decision
10 of 18
approved, 56%
43% across London
Approved examples
Flat 5, 55 Linden Gardens
Construction of additional floor to existing third floor flat
Approved 2023-01-05, Kensington and Chelsea ref PP/22/07434
Flat 1A, 17 Dawson Place
Construction of flat roofed, single storey timber garden shed located to the side of flat at lower ground floor level (Retrospective applica...
Approved 2025-07-11, Kensington and Chelsea ref PP/24/06586
1, 2 and 6 Ossington Close
Demolition and re-development of the site including demolition of the existing structure and construction of a new development comprising th...
Approved 2026-03-25, Kensington and Chelsea ref PP/25/04909
5 decided since 2021, 2 refused, typically 86 days to a decision
3 of 5
approved, 60%
45% across London
Approved examples
129 Queensway London W2 4SJ
Use of first and second floor as two residential units (Class C3) and associated new access to existing and new flats via the rear of 129-13...
Approved 2023-05-09, Westminster ref 23/00982/FULL
17 Porchester Terrace London W2 3TH
Use of part of garage as habitable accommodation, alterations to the existing pool house including enlargement of existing opening with new ...
Approved 2024-02-05, Westminster ref 23/08535/FULL
Ground Floor 42 Southwick Street London W2 1JQ
Conversion of the ground floor unit to a self contained residential unit; installation of Georgian style tiles to entrance area; and associa...
Approved 2024-07-11, Westminster ref 24/00197/FULL
Also decided here: 5 applications for outbuildings, annexes or garden buildings, 3 approved, typically 82 days.
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.
City of Westminster covers 91% of the sampled postcodes in W2. The remaining 9% of postcodes fall under authorities not resolved for this page.
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 W2, 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. 96% of postcodes in W2 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 W2 the median sale is £857,140, and only 10% 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 W2 would be measured against a £857,140 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: City of Westminster'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.