Retrofitting historic buildings

The retention, repair and sensitive retrofit of Westminster's historic buildings has a powerful role to play in the fight against climate change. By conserving our historic buildings, we eliminate the need for carbon emissions associated with new build and reduce waste by recycling and re-using existing materials.

Energy efficiency

There are many ways to improve energy efficiency and performance of historic buildings that work with traditional fabric and will not harm their special character. Some standard retrofitting measures can cause damage to traditional buildings, causing problems with trapped moisture which may reduce energy efficiency and bring risks to the health of occupants. An understanding of how an individual building has been constructed, its context, and all the factors affecting energy use can help to avoid these problems. This is called the ‘whole house’ approach.

Our adopted Environment SPD includes a chapter on retrofitting with advice on both small and large changes you can make to reduce the carbon footprint of historic buildings.

You can read more on some commonly proposed retrofit measures and permissions and consents you may need here.

Advice and Resources

Other useful sources of advice and guidance on sensitive retrofit of historic buildings can be found below.

How to improve energy efficiency in historic buildings - Historic England

Modifying historic windows - Historic England

Know your home, Know Your Carbon - Historic England 

STBA Responsible Retrofit Knowledge Centre

The Better Buildings Partnership is working with a wide range of partners in Westminster, including property owners, developers and the Great Estates to promote retrofitting and sustainability.

The Grosvenor Estate is producing an updated toolkit for leaseholders, which will also be useful for other property owners undertaking retrofitting projects. We'll share the toolkit on this page once it's available.

Other useful guidance on retrofitting has been published by the Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance.