We outline several potential avenues for the market and government to enhance household readiness. These approaches focus either on promoting individual actions or providing households with information to facilitate better planning. We briefly examine the potential policies and services, their anticipated impact, and their relative ease of implementation.

Once homeowners are in the process of getting a heat pump, the longest delays tend to be due to required steps outside of their control – getting approval from the local Distribution Network Operator (DNO) (very common) and receiving planning permission (less common).

1a. Optimise DNO approval

DNO approval can add weeks of waiting time to installations. Average approval time for a heat pump installation ranges between 2 and 4 weeks under different DNOs. Recent data shows that for a significant proportion of installs, the complete process takes over a month. Waiting times are due to inefficiencies in communication between installers and DNOs, and often due to the time it takes to deliver upgrades to fuses or to unloop the property from neighbours.

Getting homes ready before a new connection happens would eliminate a significant barrier for households.

SSEN (one DNO) is currently trialing a Low Carbon Technology (LCT) connection readiness indicator. It allows customers to find out whether their home is ready for electrification on a public platform and proactively request an upgrade from their DNO if needed. This is a small but positive signal of where the system should progress towards – accurate and open data about properties, used by installers, local authorities and retrofit coordinators, with upgrades offered proactively by DNOs free of charge to the customer.

To support the Warm Homes Plan’s ambition for proactive unlooping and a 5-day turnaround, the current DNO approval process must be streamlined to reduce response times and improve compliance from installers. Ofgem has an opportunity to embed this proactive approach within the forthcoming RIIO-ED3 price control system. Solutions could include embedding faster heat pump connections into the KPIs of DNOs that are linked to funding, improving DNO data quality to quickly assess the need for upgrades, and further standardising the application process.

In addition to speeding up approvals, if DNOs start playing a more active role in local planning and delivery of low-carbon technologies (in partnership with local governments), then their data, paired with data about heat pump suitability of homes, could be used to prioritise which homes to upgrade proactively.

1b. Reduce the need for planning permission

Across Great Britain, residential air-source heat pumps fall under Permitted Development Rights (PDR). This means they can be installed without planning permission, as long as they meet certain conditions. Homes that do not meet those conditions have to submit a planning application, which is a significant deterrent for homeowners and installers. This process can be complex, expensive and take months.

The UK government's recent reforms to England’s PDR – removal of the one-metre boundary rule, increased size limits for units, and more flexibility for detached homes – represent vital progress. However, planning rules continue to be a point of friction for a significant number of homes, in part due to some of the remaining PDR restrictions on heat pumps. The government will consult on further changes to permitted development in 2026.

To reduce many of these remaining points of friction and accelerate deployment, further specific liberalisations to the PDRs are required. Outside of Conservation Areas, siting restrictions should be relaxed to allow installations on pitched roofs, on flat roofs within one metre of the edge, and on upper-storey walls fronting a highway, as well as permitting co-location with wind turbines.

As is now the case for detached houses, more than one heat pump should be allowed to be installed for semi-detached and terraced houses as long as the cumulative sound level of the installs meets the current limit set under MCS020.

Regarding heritage constraints, PDR for the existing rules for conservation areas could be adapted to include listed buildings (meaning these households only have to apply for listed building consent). In conservation areas, rules should be relaxed to allow for units to be sited closer to the highway than the dwelling or on highway-fronting elevations as long as they are on the ground floor and sited to minimise visual impact. Finally, to eliminate regulatory ambiguity, subjective clauses requiring the ‘minimisation’ of visual and amenity impacts should be removed for areas outside of conservation areas and for listed buildings.

We are also currently investigating the current calculation being used to assess compliance with the sound limit. The UK Government has acknowledged that it may be too conservative and needs revision.

1c. Remove the EPC certificate as a condition for BUS funding

Finally, homeowners currently (2025) need an EPC issued in the last 10 years to access the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS). Depending on availability, getting an EPC assessment can delay an installation by up to a week and requires another home visit and extra costs. The EPC quickly loses its relevance as it is out of date as soon as the heat pump is installed.

Around half of all properties do not have a valid EPC and need to apply for one to access BUS. If EPCs of all ages were permissible for BUS, that would cover around 70% of properties.

The government recently announced that BUS applicants will now be able to submit ‘alternative forms of evidence’ in place of obtaining new EPC certificates. This should eliminate one existing friction point and allow some households to install a heat pump quickly (as a ‘distress purchase’) if their home is otherwise ready.