Will a Bawtry or Tickhill home get the £9,000 grant?
Probably not. The higher Boiler Upgrade Scheme rate only goes to off-grid homes swapping out oil or LPG heating. These two towns look rural, but the 2021 Census found them more connected to mains gas than Doncaster as a whole.
The Census groups each town with its neighbours. In the area it calls Bawtry, Austerfield and Hayfield, 86.1% of households used mains gas as their only heating fuel, and just 30 of 3,013 households ran on oil or tank gas alone. In Tickhill and Wadworth the figures were 85.9% on mains gas and 79 of 2,986 households on oil or tank gas. Across the Doncaster borough, mains gas alone was 82.3%.
So the usual figure here is £7,500 off an air source heat pump. If your home is one of the few on oil or LPG with no gas meter record at all, it may get the higher rate, but the grant uses a strict definition of off the gas grid. How the £9,000 rules work explains it, including why a capped meter rules a home out. Every grant amount is set out on the grants page.
Heat pumps in the Bawtry and Tickhill conservation areas
Both town centres are conservation areas, and both since 1970: Tickhill from 23 February, Bawtry from 22 June. Doncaster Council counts 102 listed structures in the Tickhill conservation area, including the Grade I Church of St Mary, and 42 in Bawtry's, around a Georgian centre and its broad market place.
Most air source heat pumps in England go in under permitted development, which means no planning application. Inside a conservation area, the rules in Part 14 of the permitted development order are tighter. A heat pump is not permitted development there if it would sit on a wall or roof that fronts a highway, or closer to a highway that bounds the property than the nearest part of the house. Outside conservation areas, the front-wall restriction only applies above the ground floor.
In practice that pushes the outdoor unit to the side or back of the house, which is where most units go anyway. If the only workable spot faces the road, it needs a planning application to Doncaster Council rather than being ruled out altogether. Doncaster Council's own pages for each conservation area show where the boundary runs, and Bawtry's has a full appraisal behind it.
A heat pump installer for bigger, detached homes
Bawtry and Tickhill are detached-house towns. The 2021 Census put 43% of homes in the Bawtry, Austerfield and Hayfield area and 51% in Tickhill and Wadworth in the detached column, against 24% across Doncaster.
Their ages differ. Valuation Office Agency records for 2025 date 44% of homes in the Tickhill and Wadworth area to 1965 to 1982. The Bawtry area is younger at the edges: about a third of its homes were built from 2000 onwards, and around 8% before 1919.
A detached house loses heat through four outside walls rather than two or three, so, all else being equal, it needs more heat than a semi of the same floor area. How much more depends on insulation, glazing, extensions and room heights, which is why Mark measures the whole house with a LiDAR scan and works out the heat loss of every room before a heat pump is chosen. The process is set out step by step on the heat pumps page.
Booking a survey in Bawtry or Tickhill
Begin with the online estimate, which works from your address. Ample, under whose MCS certification Mark's installs are certified, makes the grant application and the electricity network notice, and sets out the finance options in your proposal. Annual servicing is available in both towns too, from £150 and £90 a year: see heat pump servicing and boiler servicing. For other towns, the areas page lists them all. To talk first, ring Mark on 07725 541383, Monday to Friday until 5pm.
Heat Pump Energy
