Checking your surface against England's planning rules

What the rules say

The permitted development right for solar equipment on a house or a block of flats was rewritten on 27 August 2026, the day the new regulations came into force. It sets out what you can put up without applying for planning permission.

• A pitched roof takes the panel below the ridge, standing off the slope by 200 mm at most.
• Flat roofs cap the height at 600 mm above the roof surface.
• A wall that abuts a highway allows 200 mm of projection. Every other wall allows 400 mm.
• Conservation areas and World Heritage Sites take a highway facing wall off the table.
• Not in the grounds of a listed building and not on a scheduled monument. Listing changes it again, so the work then needs consent for the listed building as well as permission.

Both versions are live until 27 August 2027, so a surface that fails the new test may still pass the old one. After that date only the new version counts.

Timber, cladding and balconies

This is the part that catches most people out, and it is the reason we look at the surface first. The new rules exclude plug-in solar on a wooden wall, a balcony or timber cladding, for houses and for blocks of flats alike. Almost every kit on sale is sold as a balcony kit.

What to look for on your own house

Timber cladding, weatherboard, a timber deck rail and a balcony are all surfaces the right leaves out. Where the panel would fix to one of them, you are looking at a planning application rather than a purchase.

If your walls are brick, stone, render or pebbledash, this exclusion does not apply to you and the size limits above are what matters.

What we look at

We ask you for the postcode, the region and what the surface is made of. From that we work out which rule applies to that face of the house, whether the projection limit is 200 mm or 400 mm, and whether the address is in a conservation area or has a listing that changes the answer.

Stone, brick and render are the straightforward ones

A wall like this one is covered by the right, so long as the panel keeps inside the projection limit for that face of the house.

We also ask where the socket is. That decides whether an electrician is needed, which is covered on the fitting page.

What we send you

You get an email that says whether the right covers your surface, what the limits are for that face of the house, and what a panel would generate in your region on that mounting. When the answer is no, you get the reason in the same email.

We do not take commission from any manufacturer, so there is nothing riding on the answer being yes.

Questions people ask