SW1Y 5JN Westminster

Live postcode, introduced January 1980. Ward: St James's. Region: London.

Streets

House prices and rents in Westminster

A typical home in Westminster cost £887,206 in August 2026, 14.3% less than a year before. That is 25% less than five years earlier and 15% less than ten years earlier.

HomeTypical price, Aug 2026
Detached£3,935,497
Semi-detached£2,810,593
Terraced£1,641,592
Flat or maisonette£784,694
Bought by a first-time buyer£791,770

Private renters in Westminster paid £3,209 a month on average in September 2026, 0.4% less than a year before. That is 36% more than five years earlier.

HomeAverage rent a month, Sep 2026
One bedroom£2,557
Two bedrooms£3,320
Three bedrooms£3,912
Four or more bedrooms£5,447

Sources: UK House Price Index (HM Land Registry, with the ONS and the Welsh Government), to August 2026; ONS Price Index of Private Rents, to September 2026. Figures for the whole council area. The typical price is adjusted for the mix of homes that sold, so it is not the value of any one home. Rents are the average paid on all private tenancies, new and existing, so they move more slowly than rents being advertised.

Council tax

What each band costs in Westminster in 2026-27: Band D £1,050 a year on average, including the police, fire and any county and parish charges.

ABCDEFGH
£700£816£933£1,050£1,283£1,516£1,749£2,099

Homes by band in the neighbourhood around this postcode: most are in band H (38% of about 1,490 homes).

Sources: Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties, homes at 31 March 2026 (counts rounded to the nearest 10; some small counts withheld), for the neighbourhood (census area of about 700 homes) around it, not just this postcode; Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, council tax levels 2026-27. Bands are charged as fixed shares of Band D; the actual bill depends on the parish and on discounts such as the single-person discount. Check a home's own band with the official council tax band checker.

Planning and heritage

  • Conservation area: yes, St James's (council page). Extensions, demolition, some windows and doors, and work on trees need consent.
  • Listed buildings within 100 m of this postcode: 15.
  • Article 4 direction (removing permitted development rights): Article 4 Basement Development Permitted Rights Removed, Article 4 Direction Class E To C3 In Central Activities Zone.
  • Tree preservation orders: none recorded, though not every council has published theirs.
  • Green belt: no.

Listed buildings

Brownfield land registered for housing within 1 km (0.6 miles)

Source: planning.data.gov.uk (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), compiled from councils and, for listed buildings, Historic England's National Heritage List. Conservation areas, Article 4 directions, tree preservation areas and the green belt are checked at each postcode's centre. Listed buildings and protected trees are counted within 100 m of this postcode. Councils publish Article 4 directions, tree preservation orders and brownfield registers to different standards, and some not yet. Planning applications are not here: there is no national open record of them yet.

Energy projects nearby

1 energy project near the postcode, 1 of it not yet operating.

ProjectKindSizeStageDistance
Pegasus House, Sackville Street - Roof Mounted Solar Panels Westminster 21/07248/FULL Solar farm 2.3 MW Permission granted, not yet built Dec 2021 360 m

Planned projects can change or not go ahead; search the planning authority's applications by the reference shown for the plans, conditions and any objections. Construction brings traffic for some months; once built, solar farms and batteries are usually quiet, while turbines and waste plants can be seen or heard further away.

Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q2 2026 extract, Open Government Licence: renewable electricity and storage projects over 150 kW, operating, being built, permitted or applied for. Shown: wind turbines and plants that burn or digest waste within 5 km (3.1 miles), other projects of 1 MW or more within 2 km (1.2 miles); refused, withdrawn and abandoned projects are left out. Distances are from the nearest postcode centre to each project's grid reference.

Flood risk

Rivers, the sea or surface water: in this postcode, 1 address is in areas at high risk, 0 at medium risk and 0 at low risk. Each address counts once, at the higher of its rivers-and-sea and surface-water risk.

Rivers and the sea alone: no home is in an area at risk.

High: 3.3% (1 in 30) or more chance of flooding a year. Medium: 1% to 3.3%. Low: 0.1% to 1%. Very low: under 0.1%. The rivers and sea figures allow for flood defences. Counts cover whole postcodes, which can include other streets.

Flood zone for planning: no postcode centre is in flood zone 2 or 3.

Recorded floods

No recorded flood covers the centre of this postcode.

Recorded floods are where floodwater was seen or surveyed after a flood. Many floods were never mapped, an outline over a postcode's centre does not mean every home in it flooded, and homes outside one may have. Ask the seller whether the home itself has flooded.

Sources: Environment Agency Recorded Flood Outlines; Environment Agency Flood risk: postcode search tool data (loaded 29 October 2026), Risk of Flooding from Rivers and Sea: postcodes in areas at risk (loaded 29 October 2026) and Flood Map for Planning (loaded 28 October 2026). Flood zones are checked at each postcode's centre point. These are models of areas, which their publishers say are not suitable for showing whether an individual property is at risk, and they do not cover flooding from sewers or drains. Check an address on the official long-term flood risk service.

© Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2026. All rights reserved. Some features are based on digital spatial data from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, © NERC (CEH); the postcode data is produced in part from PAF® and Multiple Residence Data, © Royal Mail Group Limited.

Coastal erosion

No projected coastal erosion zone is within 1 km (0.6 miles) of the postcode.

Sources: Environment Agency, National Coastal Erosion Risk Mapping 2024 (England), and Natural Resources Wales, National Coastal Erosion Risk Management (Wales), Open Government Licence. Distances are from the nearest postcode centre to the edge of each zone; where a postcode centre is inside a zone, some homes on it may not be.

Storm overflows

3 storm overflows within 1 km (0.6 miles) of the postcode spilled 1 time, for 2 hours in all, in 2025. They discharge into R.thames ( Tidal ), River Thames (Esturine).

OverflowIntoSpillsHoursDistance
Regent Street Cso Thames Water R.thames ( Tidal ) 0 0 940 m (0.6 miles)
Combined Sewer Overflow at Victoria Thames Water River Thames (Esturine) 0 0 940 m (0.6 miles)
Northumberland Street Cso Thames Water R.thames ( Tidal ) 1 2 1 km (0.6 miles)

A storm overflow lets sewage diluted with rainwater into a river, stream or the sea when heavy rain overwhelms the sewers, so the spills here affect the water they run into, not homes. A spill is counted the regulators' way: a first 12 hours, then each 24 hours it goes on.

Source: Environment Agency, Event Duration Monitoring storm overflow annual return for 2025, from the water companies' monitors on each overflow in England, Open Government Licence. Distances are from the nearest postcode centre to each overflow's outlet. A year's figures are published the following spring; a monitor that worked for less of the year undercounts.

Coal mining

No postcode centre here is in a coalfield: the Mining Remediation Authority records no coal mining risk here.

Source: Mining Remediation Authority (formerly the Coal Authority), development high and low risk areas, Open Government Licence. Checked at each postcode's centre, so a home near the edge of an area may differ. It covers coal mining only, not other mining (such as tin, lead, iron or chalk), and is no substitute for a coal mining search. About the risk areas.

Radon

The postcode is in a 1 km square in the lowest band of radon potential: fewer than 1 home in 100 is estimated to be at or above the Action Level. It is not a radon Affected Area.

Source: British Geological Survey and UK Health Security Agency, Indicative Atlas of Radon in Great Britain, Open Government Licence. Contains British Geological Survey materials © UKRI 2026. Each 1 km square is classed by the highest radon potential found anywhere in it, so a square's figure can overstate it for much of the square; the detailed map is not open data.

Gas and electricity use

The postcode does not have the 5 or more domestic meters needed for figures to be published.

Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, postcode level domestic gas and electricity statistics for 2024 (gas from mid-May to mid-May), Open Government Licence: domestic meters on each postcode, from the gas and electricity industry's meter readings. A postcode with fewer than 5 meters of a fuel has no figures for it.

Historic landfill

No historic landfill site is within 500 m (0.3 miles) of the postcode.

Sources: Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales, historic landfill sites (places where waste was put into or onto the land and no environmental permit is now in force), Open Government Licence. Distances are from the nearest postcode centre to the edge of each site as mapped; the outlines and dates come from old records and can be approximate. Landfill still operating is not included.

Height above sea level

The postcode's addresses are about 10 m above sea level.

Source: Ordnance Survey, OS Terrain 50, July 2026: the height of the ground on a 50 m grid, read at each address, in metres above Ordnance Datum (mean sea level at Newlyn). It is the lie of the land, not floor or threshold levels, and is accurate to a few metres. Being low-lying is not in itself a flood risk; the flood section above says what the flood maps show.

Broadband

Superfast 100%, ultrafast 100%, gigabit 100% of premises; 0% cannot get 10 Mbit/s. Ofcom Connected Nations, data as at January 2026.

Getting around

Sources: Department for Transport, NaPTAN (every public transport stop), as at 31 October 2026; Office of Rail and Road, Estimates of station usage 2024–25 (which stations are on the National Rail network, and their journeys: entries and exits in the year to March); OurAirports (public domain, kept by volunteers); car parks and charging points from Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-10-21.0, which gathers business listings from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and others: not an official register, so some will be missing, private or out of date. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre, not routes, and say nothing about how often anything runs. Stations opened since the end of ORR's year appear when ORR publishes the next one, each December; heritage railways are left out.

NearestDistance
Railway stationsLondon Charing Cross 20 million journeys in 2024–25800 m (0.5 miles)
Tottenham Court Road 68 million journeys in 2024–251.1 km (0.7 miles)
Bond Street 43 million journeys in 2024–251.1 km (0.7 miles)
Underground, metro or tramPiccadilly Circus Underground Station440 m (0.3 miles)
Green Park Underground Station480 m (0.3 miles)
Charing Cross Underground Station620 m (0.4 miles)
Bus stops10 stops within 400 m (0.2 miles), 64 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Pall Mall / St James's Palace40 m
Bus or coach stationVictoria Station1.3 km (0.8 miles)
Ferry terminalWestminster Pier1 km (0.6 miles)
Car parks17 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest National Car Parks310 m
EV charging points67 within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest bp pulse Charging Station170 m
Airport with scheduled flightsLondon City Airport LCY13.3 km (8.3 miles)
Nearest large airportLondon Heathrow Airport LHR22.8 km (14 miles)

Local services

Sources: NHS Organisation Data Service, as at 31 October 2026: GP practices, community pharmacies and dental practices with an NHS contract, open now, each placed at the centre of its postcode; hospitals are NHS trust and Welsh health board sites named as hospitals, and may not have an emergency department. Ratings and care homes: Care Quality Commission, latest ratings as at 2 November 2026 (England only; the CQC does not rate dental practices, and Wales's inspectorates give no ratings). Police stations and cash machines from Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-10-21.0, which gathers business listings: not an official register, so some will be missing or out of date. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre. Nothing here says whether a practice is taking new patients or a dentist new NHS patients.

NearestDistance
GP surgeries12 practices within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Soho Centre For Health And Care Good Apr 20261 km (0.6 miles)
Pharmacies31 pharmacies within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Dr Harris & Co Chemists270 m
NHS dentists45 practices within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Pallmall Dental190 m
HospitalSchoen Hospital London Good Jun 20191.5 km (0.9 miles)
Care homes1 home within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Norton House Good May 20261.2 km (0.8 miles)
Police stationTrafalgar Square Police Box630 m (0.4 miles)
Cash machines2 machines within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Hsbc ATM100 m

Nurseries and childcare

The ten nearest nurseries, pre-schools and clubs are all within 1.3 km (0.8 miles); the nearest is 670 m (0.4 miles) from the postcode's centre.

ProviderKindPlacesLatest inspectionDistance
Soho Family Centre Nursery W1F 0RN Full day care 40 Good (Oct 2023, overall grade under the previous framework) 670 m (0.4 miles)
Foreign And Commonwealth Office Nursery SW1A 2AH Full day care 46 Outstanding (Sep 2023, overall grade under the previous framework) 700 m (0.4 miles)
RAFAKidz London SW1A 2HB Full day care 39 Not inspected yet 740 m (0.5 miles)
House of Commons Nursery SW1A 2NE Full day care 40 Outstanding (Feb 2022, overall grade under the previous framework) 900 m (0.6 miles)
FunTech at Westminster SW1E 5HJ Sessional day care (over fives) Not inspected yet 1 km (0.6 miles)
11 Plus London SW1E 5HJ Out-of-school day care (over fives) Not inspected yet 1 km (0.6 miles)
Junior Adventures Group @ St George's W1K W1K 2XH Out-of-school day care 30 Not inspected yet 1 km (0.6 miles)
Junior Adventures Group @ St Matthews SW1P SW1P 2DG Out-of-school day care 32 Not inspected yet 1 km (0.6 miles)
St Vincent De Paul School Extended Club Premier F4F Group SW1P 1EP Out-of-school day care 32 Not inspected yet 1.2 km (0.7 miles)
Turtles Nursery Limited WC2H 9RF Full day care 31 Good (Aug 2025, overall grade under the previous framework) 1.3 km (0.8 miles)

Ofsted also registers 44 childminders and 23 home childcarers (nannies) in Westminster. It does not publish their addresses, so they cannot be shown here; the council's family information service lists those taking children.

Source: Ofsted, childcare providers and inspections management information, as at June 2026, Open Government Licence: providers on the Early Years and Childcare Registers on non-domestic premises, placed at their postcode. Since November 2025 Ofsted gives a standard for each of six areas (Exceptional, Strong, Expected, Needs attention, Urgent improvement) rather than one overall grade; older grades stand until a provider is inspected again. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre.

Parks and green space

Source: Ordnance Survey, OS Open Greenspace, April 2026: public parks and gardens, play spaces, playing fields and allotments, with their entrances. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre to a site's nearest entrance (or its edge where none is recorded), not walking routes; sizes are the area OS maps for each site. Some sites, such as school playing fields, may not be open to the public.

NearestDistance
Park or garden9 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Unnamed 9,040 m²70 m
Largest park within 800 m (0.5 miles)St James's Park 23 ha350 m
Play area1 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Unnamed 1,070 m²620 m (0.4 miles)
Playing fieldWestminster School Playing Field 3.7 ha1.4 km (0.9 miles)
AllotmentsUnnamed 1,020 m²2.3 km (1.4 miles)

Within 800 m (0.5 miles): 9 parks and gardens, 46 hectares in all.

Landmarks

The nearest historic landmark is 20 and 21, St James's Square Sw1, a listed building (Grade I), 10 m. 1,235 listed buildings are within 1 km (0.6 miles), 107 of them Grade I and 156 of them Grade II*.

Historic places
NameWhat it isFrom the postcode's centre
20 and 21, St James's Square Sw1Listed building, Grade I10 m
Schomberg HouseListed building, Grade II*60 m south
The Royal Automobile ClubListed building, Grade II*90 m east
Oxford and Cambridge University ClubListed building, Grade II*90 m south
St James's SquareRegistered park or garden, Grade II110 m north-east
St James's ParkRegistered park or garden, Grade I400 m (0.2 miles) south
The Chapter House and Pyx Chamber in the abbey cloisters, Westminster AbbeyScheduled monument1 km (0.6 miles) south-east
Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret's ChurchWorld Heritage Site1 km (0.6 miles) south-east
The Jewel TowerScheduled monument1.1 km (0.7 miles) south-east
Inner Temple Hall ButteryScheduled monument1.9 km (1.2 miles) north-east
Natural landmarks within 5 km (3.1 miles)
NameWhat it isFrom the postcode's centre
St James's Park LakeLake or reservoir460 m (0.3 miles) south
Duck IslandIsland500 m (0.3 miles) south-east
Pelican PoolLake or reservoir520 m (0.3 miles) south-east
King's ReachTidal water1 km (0.7 miles) east
Paddington GreenWood3.1 km (1.9 miles) north-west
Barrow HillHill3.9 km (2.4 miles) north-west

Sources: Historic England's registers through planning.data.gov.uk (MHCLG), and Cadw through DataMapWales (Welsh Government): World Heritage Sites within 10 km (6.2 miles), battlefields within 5 km (3.1 miles), registered parks and gardens within 3 km (1.9 miles), scheduled monuments within 2 km (1.2 miles), and Grade I and II* listed buildings within 1 km (0.6 miles). Ordnance Survey, OS Open Names, October 2026: named hills, valleys, lakes, woods, wetlands and coast (it has no rivers). Distances are in a straight line to the middle of each site, and being on a register does not mean there is public access.

Air quality

Source: Defra, modelled background air pollution, annual means for 2024, for the 1 km square that holds the postcode's centre. These are background levels, away from the kerb: beside a busy road nitrogen dioxide in particular can be several times higher. UK limits are the legal annual limits for England and Wales; the World Health Organization's 2021 guidelines are much stricter, and most towns and cities are above them.

Annual means in µg/m³ (micrograms per cubic metre of air)
PollutantHereUK limitWHO guideline
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2)32.14010
Fine particles (PM2.5)10.6205
Particles (PM10)17.44015

All three are within the UK legal limits; all three are above the WHO guideline, as in most towns and cities.

Road, rail and aircraft noise

Source: Defra, strategic noise mapping Round 4 (England), modelled for 2021 and published in December 2023, and its airport maps of the same round for the fifteen largest English airports, published in April 2026: Lden, the average sound level over a whole day with extra weight for the evening and night, on a 10 m grid, read at each address. These are models of traffic, not measurements; they leave out smaller airports and airfields, industry and neighbours, and a room at the back of a house is often much quieter than the front. The World Health Organization's guidelines are 53 dB for road traffic, 54 dB for railways and 45 dB for aircraft (below the lowest level shown here).

Addresses by modelled noise level (Lden, dB)
LevelRoad trafficRailwaysAircraft
65 to 69600
55 to 59100
Under 55077

7 of the postcode's 7 addresses are modelled at 55 dB or more from road traffic, above the WHO guidelines.

Road safety

Source: Department for Transport, road safety data (STATS19), collisions in 2021 to 2025, as published by November 2026. Collisions in which someone was hurt and which were reported to the police, within 250 m of the postcode's centre. Severity is the worst injury as the police recorded it.

48 collisions in which someone was hurt were reported around the postcode in 2021 to 2025: 1 fatal, 8 serious and 39 slight, in which 1 person died and 8 people were seriously hurt. 15 involved a pedestrian; 15 involved a cyclist; 9 involved a motorcyclist; 1 involved a child under 16. 35% happened in the dark, and 21% on a wet or icy road. Most were on roads with a 20 mph limit.

By year
YearCollisionsFatal or serious
202182
2022110
202394
202482
2025121
The most recent 10 of 48
DateSeverityWho was hurtRoadConditions
22 Dec 2025 09:20 Slight 1 person: 1 cyclist A4, 20 mph Wet road
17 Dec 2025 20:39 Slight 1 person: 1 pedestrian A4, 20 mph Dark, street lights on
25 Nov 2025 10:27 Fatal 1 person: 1 pedestrian A4, 20 mph Daylight
3 Nov 2025 15:40 Slight 1 person: 1 pedestrian A4, 20 mph Wet road
25 Jul 2025 03:19 Slight 1 person: 1 cyclist A4, 20 mph Dark, street lights on
16 Jul 2025 17:46 Slight 1 person: 1 cyclist A4, 20 mph Daylight
1 Jul 2025 09:00 Slight 1 person A4, 20 mph Daylight
6 Jun 2025 04:40 Slight 1 person A4, 20 mph Daylight
18 Apr 2025 15:35 Slight 2 people: 2 pedestrians, 1 child A4, 20 mph Daylight
11 Mar 2025 09:30 Slight 1 person: 1 cyclist Minor road, 20 mph Daylight

Only collisions in which someone was hurt and which the police were told about are here: damage-only collisions and near misses are not, and some injuries are never reported. Positions are recorded by the police, usually to within a few metres. Each year's figures are published the following September.

Traffic on nearby roads

The busiest counted road within 500 m (0.3 miles) is the A4 between Waterloo Pl and Cockspur St, with 18,177 motor vehicles a day on average in 2025, 320 m from the postcode.

RoadBetweenVehicles a dayLorriesTen years beforeDistance
A4 Piccadilly to Waterloo Pl 15,704 estimated; counted 2019 3% -14% since 2015 40 m
A4 Pall Mall to Piccadilly Circus 12,058 estimated; counted 2023 5% -15% since 2015 290 m
A4 St James St to Regent Street/ Picc Circus 13,922 estimated; counted 2019 2% +11% since 2015 290 m
A4 Waterloo Pl to Cockspur St 18,177 estimated 3% 320 m
A4 Piccadilly Circus to Pall Mall East 11,831 estimated; counted 2021 5% -32% since 2015 400 m (0.2 miles)
A4 Haymarket to Trafalgar Square 8,534 estimated; counted 2022 7% 490 m (0.3 miles)

Each figure is the annual average daily flow: the motor vehicles passing the count point, both ways, on an average day of the year. A point is counted by hand on a weekday every few years and estimated from the trend on similar roads in between. Lorries are heavy goods vehicles, as a share of all motor vehicles.

Source: Department for Transport, road traffic statistics, annual average daily flows to 2025, Open Government Licence. Distances are from the nearest postcode centre to each count point.

Climate, daylight and earthquakes

Monthly temperatures and rainfall, sunrise and sunset through the year, and earthquakes recorded nearby since 1970 are much the same across the area, so they are worked out once for Westminster: see them on the Westminster page.

People and work

Source: ONS Census 2021, taken on 21 March 2021, for the Output Area (a small census area of about 125 households) that this postcode is in: 211 residents in 127 households. The census was taken during a lockdown, so working from home is high and travel to work low compared with now. ONS swaps a few records between neighbouring areas and adds small amounts of noise to counts to protect privacy, so small differences mean little. Industry is not published for areas this small.

Who lives here

Around this postcodeEngland
Median age3840
Children under 155%17%
Aged 65 and over15%18%

Homes

Around this postcodeEngland
Owned (outright or with a mortgage)22%61%
Owned outright19%33%
Shared ownership0%1%
Social rented2%17%
Private rented76%21%

Work and commuting

Around this postcodeEngland
Adults (16 and over) in work70%57%
Unemployment (of those working or looking for work)3%6%
Retired (of adults)13%22%
Long-term sick or disabled (of adults)0%4%
Work mainly from home (of those in work)60%32%
Travel to work by car or van8%48%
By train, Underground, metro or tram8%4%
By any public transport, including bus10%8%
On foot or by bicycle17%10%
Work within 10 km (6 miles) of home (of those who travel to work)88%65%
Work 30 km (19 miles) or more away8%8%

Education and languages

Around this postcodeEngland
Degree or other higher qualification, Level 4+ (of adults)73%34%
No qualifications8%18%
Apprenticeship as highest qualification1%5%
Main language English (aged 3 and over)70%91%
Cannot speak English well or at all2%2%

Deprivation

The neighbourhood around this postcode is in decile 8 of 10 on the English Indices of Deprivation 2025, where 1 is the most deprived tenth of England's 33,755 neighbourhoods and 10 the least.

Source: English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), by LSOA (about 1,500 people), through the ONS Postcode Directory. The index combines income, employment, health, education, crime, housing and living environment; it ranks areas against each other and does not describe any one household. Ranks in England and Wales are worked out separately and cannot be compared.

The full dossier for this postcode's main street is on Pall Mall.