The short answer
Building Regulations approval is required before a breast comes out, as it is part of the building's structure. A stack above the roof can be treated differently, and planning turns on the listing and location of the house. A party wall notice is needed when the chimney is on a party wall. Check with your council before work starts.
Breast, stack or both?
People say chimney removal for several different jobs. Inside, the breast juts from the wall and carries the flues up. Above the slates, the stack finishes the run. You can remove a breast and keep the stack, which needs permanent support; take the stack down to roof level and leave the breast; or remove both. Each has different consequences for the structure, the roof and the neighbours.
The rules below turn on which job you mean. If you are taking out a breast and leaving a stack, read our page on removed chimney breasts for what must hold up the brickwork above. If a whole chimney is coming down, our guide to chimney removal sets out how the work runs. This page deals with permission only, and nothing here is legal advice. The wider chimney repairs pages cover repair instead of removal.
Building Regulations approval
The Planning Portal gives a firm answer for a breast: approval under the Building Regulations always applies, and it suggests asking an engineer. For the stack above the roof, the same source says the rules may differ, so ask before you assume either way.
You apply either to the local authority's building control team or, if you prefer a private firm, to a registered building control approver, a role that has existed since 6 April 2024. Swindon Borough Council runs its own building control; in Wiltshire, ask Wiltshire Council's building control team. Swindon's building control pages describe two routes for a house, Full Plans or the lighter Building Notice. Regularisation exists for work already carried out without approval. On notifiable roof work we handle the Building Regulations notification ourselves, and we can talk through consent, so mention removal plans when we survey.
If a loft conversion or extension is also planned, mention it when you apply, because the structural calculations for the chimney and the new work may be linked.
File the approval papers with your deeds, because a buyer's conveyancer is likely to ask for them later.
Planning permission and listed buildings
Planning works on its own track, apart from Building Regulations. Taking down a stack changes the look of a roof, so the answer turns on the building and where it stands. A listed house needs listed building consent before anything that alters its special interest, and doing that work unconsented is a criminal offence. For a house in a conservation area, or one covered by an Article 4 direction, extra controls may apply that withdraw rights people normally have.
Swindon's list of conservation areas includes Old Town, Highworth, Wroughton and the Railway Village, where an Article 4 direction was adopted in 1980. Other places around Swindon fall under other councils, so check the right one. We cannot give you a ruling, and it would be wrong to guess. Put the question to Swindon Borough Council's planning team, or to your own council, with a photograph and a short note. More on this sits in our listed chimney repairs page.
Photographs of the house from the front and the back, with the chimney circled, make a pre-application query to the council much quicker to answer.
Party wall notice
If the chimney is on a party wall, which is common in terraces and semis, the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 applies. GOV.UK names the jobs that call for a word with the neighbour first, among them taking a chimney away from such a wall, and cutting into the wall at all. The notice goes out between 2 months and a year before the building works are due to begin. A neighbour who agrees has 14 days to say so in writing, and a lack of reply is never to be read as agreement.
The Act lets an owner cut back any chimney breast, jamb or flue that projects from a party wall, and the notice must be served at least two months ahead, unless the adjoining owners and occupiers consent in writing to a sooner start. Where neighbours share a stack, our page on shared chimney stacks explains the practical side. Read the GOV.UK party wall guide before you serve any notice, and keep a copy of everything you send.
Silence from a neighbour is not consent. If no reply comes, the Act provides a route to a dispute process, and it is worth taking advice from a party wall surveyor rather than starting work and hoping.
A sensible order of events
Work through the steps in this order. First decide whether you are removing the breast, the stack or both. Second, ask the council about planning, especially if the house is old, listed or in a protected area. Third, instruct a structural engineer and make the building control application. Fourth, serve any party wall notice in good time. Only then book the work.
After a chimney has gone, the roof has to be reinstated at the opening: new covering, battens and a sound deck, with the flue openings dealt with. Taking a flue out of use also changes how air moves through the house, which is one reason damp can appear afterwards; our page on damp chimney breasts covers that. If you are keeping a stack and only need a new pot, chimney pot replacement needs none of these steps. A stack that is simply crumbling calls for a repair, not a removal; spalling bricks explains the choice.