Rich Londoners find money can’t buy ACs as temperatures soar

For Londoners, obstacles to getting AC units installed in their homes vary. There can be technical or aesthetic restrictions on attaching units to old buildings. And sometimes, councils simply reject claims of overheating. Gill says he had a client living in a 1920s home in Highgate, north London, who had sought permission to install air conditioning back in 2022, which is the first year the UK recorded temperatures over 40C (104F). The council blocked the request because it judged that the house wouldn’t overheat.

The client “would beg to differ,” Gill said. “Plenty of my clients go, ‘I understand Richard, it is a first world problem, but my kids can’t sleep and I work long hours’.”

Gary Woodward, managing director at north London-based company Airconco, says even though it’s clear that properties in large parts of London are now “extremely hot” during the summer months, existing restrictions prevent or delay installations in 30% to 40% of residential dwellings.

In Camden, a north-London borough that includes wealthy neighborhoods such as Hampstead, Primrose Hill and Belsize Park, a family was denied permission for two air conditioning units earlier this year because of noise and “visual clutter” concerns, according to public documents reviewed by Bloomberg. The application included images of a thermometer showing evening temperatures exceeding 25C in the home’s south-facing bedrooms.

The family was suffering from a “massive issue of overheating within a property which is difficult to cool to safe temperatures,” the report submitted by their planning consultant stated. “The fundamental issue of this application is not one of comfort, but rather safety for the applicants’ children.”

Claire Coutinho, the Conservative shadow energy secretary who until 2024 was the politician in charge of the UK’s energy policy, has been vocal in her criticism of existing regulations, warning that access to air conditioning was being blocked by “bureaucrats in ivory towers.”

In another case, an application for a rooftop unit submitted to Kensington and Chelsea council last year was denied, after neighbors raised concerns it would be too obtrusive, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg.

Aggregate data on AC applications in London wasn’t made available by city authorities. A spokesperson for Camden Council said that applications for air conditioning are assessed against the borough’s development plan, with policies covering sustainability, design and noise all taken into account. A spokesperson for Kensington and Chelsea Council said that there were more restrictions than in other areas because three-quarters of the borough is of special architectural or historic interest.

The examples show that climate change can be blind to demographic distinctions, including Britain’s famed class divide. The UK, which in recent years has had to deal with recurring sewage leaks into its rivers thanks to the mismanagement of its water utilities, is now struggling to deal with rising temperatures that are affecting all its citizens.

This summer is expected to be among the warmest on record, the UK’s Met Office weather service said on Monday. Temperatures throughout June, July and August have been “consistently above-average,” according to Emily Carlisle, a scientist at the Met Office, with persistent warmth caused by dry ground and warm seas.

Though data on air conditioning remains sparse, a 2022 government estimate indicated that less than 5% of British households have it. Meanwhile, 55% of homes in the UK have bedrooms that are overheating, according to an analysis the same year by Arup, a consultancy.

Arup, which conducted its study for the UK’s Climate Change Committee, concluded that levels of overheating were even higher in London. Small bedrooms, loft rooms and apartments are particularly vulnerable, it said. A separate study published in June found that indoor overheating reported in UK dwellings soared from 20% in 2011 to 82% in 2022.

It’s a trend playing out across Europe, where demand for air conditioning is on the rise. “We are used to having the heating mindset,” says Simon Pezzutto, a senior researcher at the research center Eurac. “But now with climate change, we need to switch to the cooling mindset — and most cities in northern Europe are not prepared for that.”

The world is on track for more than 3C of warming, according to the United Nations. After 2C, roughly one in five British homes will likely need air conditioning to stay within an acceptable temperature range, according to the Arup analysis. The rest should be able to make do with ceiling fans, reflective paint and shutters, it said.

Andy Love, founder of Shade the UK, a community interest company which works with government and authorities to manage overheating risk in buildings, says air conditioning can help keep people safe during periods of extreme heat. But he also encourages homeowners to consider other avenues first. Solutions such as external shutters, rarely used in UK homes, are effective and less expensive to install and to run, he said.

“If we jump straight into an air conditioning country, it’s a shame,” Love said.

Whatever the solution, there are real dangers to overheated buildings. Overheating at night means poor sleep, which as well as being uncomfortable can lead to long-term health problems like immune system damage and higher risk of heart disease. Not being able to cool down at night also reduces the body’s ability to cope with longer periods of heat, increasing the risk of dehydration and heat stress.

Some UK restrictions on installing AC units are slowly being relaxed. For example, the government this year added air-to-air heat pumps – air conditioning units that can both heat and cool – to a list of building work that can be done without asking for permission. And the government is considering adding air-to-air systems to a subsidy program designed to make heat pumps more accessible, in the interest of helping Britain reach its net zero goals.

But limits are still in place. Apartments and buildings deemed valuable for conservation or aesthetic reasons — often expensive dwellings inhabited by high earners — still require special permission.

“Those rules were written for a cooler climate and a dirtier grid,” says Sam Richards, a former government adviser and chief executive of Britain Remade, a campaign group. “Neither of which exist anymore.”