Notting Hill Council Votes on Housing Levies and Pavement Repairs: Who Gets Help and Who Waits

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea full council voted on three significant measures at its Tuesday evening session, July 7, that will directly shape daily life for residents across the W10 and W11 postcodes. The headline decision was a 150 percent council tax premium on properties used exclusively as short-term holiday lets for more than 90 days per year, a power made available to English local authorities under the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Act 2023. A second vote deferred Phase 2 of the borough's Carriageway Resurfacing Programme by 12 months, citing a 22 percent increase in asphalt contract costs. A third measure approved a revised Community Infrastructure Levy schedule affecting new residential developments above 100 square metres.

The timing matters. Notting Hill's housing market sits under sustained pressure. According to the borough's most recent housing data, private rents in the W11 area averaged £3,400 per month for a two-bedroom flat in the 12 months to March 2026, a 14 percent rise compared with the same period two years earlier. The short-term let premium follows a 2025 government consultation that found approximately 3,400 properties in RBKC had been listed on platforms such as Airbnb for more than 90 days in the preceding calendar year, reducing the stock available to long-term renters and owner-occupiers.

Short-Term Let Surcharge: Renters and Landlords Face a New Calculation

For residents hunting for a long-term home, the premium is projected to push some short-term let operators to return properties to the conventional rental market or sell. The council's housing policy team estimates the measure could release between 200 and 350 units back to longer-term tenancies across the borough within 18 months, though housing analysts caution that enforcement depends on a new registration scheme that will not be operational until January 2027. Residents living next to holiday-let properties, who have raised repeated complaints about noise and waste management particularly around the Portobello Road corridor, will see no immediate change until the registration database is in place.

Property owners who rent their primary home for fewer than 90 days annually are entirely unaffected. The premium applies only to secondary properties or those that have no registered permanent resident. The council's finance directorate says it expects the surcharge to generate between £1.8 million and £2.4 million in additional annual revenue, which will be ring-fenced for the borough's affordable housing delivery fund under a condition attached to the vote.

Carriageway Delay and CIL Revision: Mixed Results for Everyday Notting Hill

The deferred road programme is the decision most residents will notice soonest. Phase 2 had been scheduled to cover portions of Ladbroke Grove between the A40 overpass and Westbourne Park Road, along with sections of Colville Terrace and Blenheim Crescent, starting in September 2026. The 12-month postponement pushes the start to autumn 2027 at the earliest. The council's director of transport confirmed in a written officer report that the deferral results directly from a contractor tender that came in 22 percent above the allocated budget of £4.1 million, a gap the current capital programme cannot absorb without cutting other projects. Residents and cycling groups had been expecting the works to include new protected lanes along Ladbroke Grove as part of the borough's Active Travel Programme commitments.

The revised Community Infrastructure Levy schedule, the third item voted through, raises the levy payable by residential developers in Notting Hill's Zone 1 designation from £350 per square metre to £420 per square metre. The council says the uplift, which takes effect on October 1, 2026, is expected to generate an additional £600,000 per year toward local infrastructure including primary school capacity and public open space. Developers with planning permission already granted are not subject to the new rate.

All three measures now move to implementation. The short-term let premium requires a formal statutory notice period before bills are issued, meaning the earliest affected property owners will receive a revised council tax demand is April 2027. Residents wanting to check whether a neighbouring property is registered under the new scheme will be able to use a public-facing portal the council says will launch alongside the registration system in January 2027. The next full council meeting is scheduled for September 9.