Fitting, and an outdoor socket
What you can do and what an electrician does.
Read this oneThe August rewrite
Great Britain legalised plug-in solar on 27 August 2026. The permitted development right for solar equipment on houses and on blocks of flats was rewritten the same day, and this time the wording mentions plug-in solar by name. A rooftop installer asked the same question a year ago would have told you something different.
There is a transition until 27 August 2027. Up to that date you can work to the older wording or to the new one.
Timber, balconies and cladding
A plug-in installation fixed to a wooden wall, to a balcony or to timber cladding falls outside the right as it is now written. The guidance sets that out for houses and then repeats it for blocks of flats. Since most shops advertise these panels as balcony solar, it catches a lot of people.
With a timber balcony or a timber clad wall you would not be relying on permitted development at all. The question becomes whether an application is worth the trouble, and frequently it is not.
Protected homes and protected areas
Three separate situations, and the East Midlands has a great many of all three.
- Conservation areas and World Heritage Sites rule out the elevation that faces the road.
- Ground belonging to a listed building, and any scheduled monument, falls outside the right completely.
- Listed homes need consent as well as permission, and both take time, so we would ring the conservation officer early.
Limits you can measure
A tape measure settles most of this before you speak to anybody.
- Equipment on a surface that abuts a highway is held to 200 mm of projection. Elsewhere the allowance is 400 mm.
- Nothing on a pitched roof may break the ridge line or stand more than 200 mm off the slope.
- Above a flat roof the ceiling is 600 mm.
Where we stand on permission
No honest firm can print "no planning permission needed" as a flat statement. The right comes with conditions. Meet them and there is no application to make. Miss one and there is. Working out which of those describes your home is what we are for.
The email you get back
An email, written out. It quotes the rule that governs your surface, gives the projection allowance at your property, and puts a yearly figure against the mounting you asked about. Where the right leaves you out, we lead with that.
More on surfaces
Our wall is pebbledash. Is that render?
The wooden surfaces rule turns on the material behind the finish, so a masonry wall stays a masonry wall under pebbledash or render. Carry that same render on a timber framed outer leaf and the answer changes, which is a thing we look up rather than guess.
Could it go on the garage or the shed?
Buildings inside the curtilage of a house are covered as well, under their own set of limits. Describe the outbuilding to us and we will say which way it falls.
I rent. Is that a problem?
Agreement from the landlord comes first, and a leaseholder may need the freeholder as well. Consultation responses flagged this and the regulations left it unresolved, so get that answer before you order anything.
Elsewhere on this site
On this page
Not sure how it applies to your house?
A postcode and the name of the material is enough for us to start.
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