Is Air Con Banned?

Technically correct is not the best kind of correct

It is really hot. And if you want to buy an incredibly inefficient portable unit, one that will not cool your house that well and will use a lot of electricity, there is nothing to stop you. Anywhere in the country, you can do it right now. There are plenty of options online.

If you want to install a proper, energy efficient system that will work better, cost less to run, and be better for the environment, then it depends where you live and what kind of home you have.

I live in Camden, North London. Camden has a “cooling hierarchy”, and air conditioning sits right at the bottom of it. If you have neither tried or proven why you couldn’t try everything else on the list first, you have very little chance of getting permission to install air conditioning. Many of these other steps are expensive, disruptive, and some of them barely work at all in really hot weather.

Having reviewed cases taken to the Planning Inspectorate in my area, I think there is close to zero chance I would be allowed to install air conditioning in my flat.

In many areas with more sensible councils, I would not have this problem. In lots of places, I would not even need to apply for planning permission. Maybe this is a reasonable local power for councils to have. But to argue that this means air conditioning is not banned is pedantry. It may not be banned everywhere, in every circumstance, by one single national law. But in places like Camden, effective fixed cooling is blocked in practice for a huge number of residents. It’s a fairly normal use of language to describe something as a ban even if something is technically allowed, provided a set of incredibly stringent criteria are met. The defacto onshore wind ban under the previous government was widely described as such, even though one project (at Keele University) was able to go ahead.

The rules are also much closer to a national ban in England if you are building a new home. Here, you are subject to the Part O regulations on overheating. These do not literally say housebuilders can never install air conditioning. But they do strongly discourage mechanical cooling except as a last resort. Before a developer can rely on air conditioning, they are expected to show that all possible ‘passive’ measures, for example having smaller windows, have been tried first.

This creates an absurd situation. In many cases, it can be extremely difficult for a housebuilder to get permission to design proper cooling into a new home. But in large parts of the country, once the keys are handed over, the new resident is allowed to install it themselves. Yet the easiest, cheapest, and best time to install efficient cooling is obviously when the home is being built.

So, the rules push people in exactly the wrong direction. They allow the worst (by any measure) portable air conditioning units everywhere. They discourage better, more efficient fixed systems during construction. And then, in some cases, they allow residents to retrofit those same systems later, at greater cost and with worse results.

Government and ‘experts’ burning their credibility for no reason

When someone says “air con isn’t banned”, they are technically correct, which for them appears to be the best kind of correct.

But it is very easy, when you know more about a subject than most people, to be technically correct while missing the point entirely. Saying “air con isn’t banned” may be true in the narrowest legal sense. But it does not answer the real question: can people actually install effective cooling in their homes without being forced through an expensive and hostile planning process?

The issues are obviously more complex than you will see in a newspaper headline or on a TV programme aimed at non-experts. But people with subject matter knowledge should use this as an opportunity to explain that complexity, not sneer at people who get the wording slightly wrong. Experts trading their credibility for the brief pleasure of smugly mocking people on social media is one thing. It is worse when governments do it.

MHCLG’s statement also relies heavily on being technically correct about there being no ban. But it says very little about the ‘Part O’ rules MHCLG itself has created. If ministers and officials are not prepared to defend those rules, or promise to change them, then maybe it would be better not to put out a statement at all.

Air conditioning is not “banned’ in Britain. But for many new homes, and for many existing homes in places like Camden, it is blocked in practice. Proclaiming that this is not technically a ban is playing stupid word games, not engaging with the real issue.

The government is hiding behind a narrow legal definition of ‘ban’ to avoid defending a system that pushes people towards worse, less efficient cooling.