Solar panels on listed buildings: the 2026 rule change

The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) Order 2026 comes into force on 27 August. It was made on 29 July and laid before Parliament the following day, so it has arrived with very little notice. Most of the coverage so far has treated it as a story about balcony solar panels. For anyone who owns, manages or advises on a historic building, the more important change is a quiet one: from 27 August, solar equipment on a listed dwelling stops being permitted development. The solar panels permitted development right on listed dwellings goes with it.

The Order, SI 2026/896, rewrites Classes A and B of Part 14 of Schedule 2 to the GPDO. Part 14 is the renewable energy part, and Classes A and B are the two that matter for houses: Class A covers solar equipment installed on a dwellinghouse or block of flats, and Class B covers stand-alone solar within the curtilage, meaning arrays in the garden.

Both classes have been split in two, so that dwellinghouses and blocks of flats are now dealt with separately, and both have picked up new limitations. Here is what actually changes, and what it means in practice.

Solar panels: permitted development withdrawn for listed buildings

Until 27 August, Class A is not available where solar equipment would be installed on a building within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse or block of flats which is listed. The listed building itself is not mentioned. In planning permission terms, panels on the roof of a listed house have therefore been permitted development, subject to the usual limits, with listed building consent required separately under section 7 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990.

The new Order closes that gap. From 27 August, Class A will not permit solar equipment installed:

• on a dwellinghouse, or on a building within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse, if the dwellinghouse is a listed building; or
• on a block of flats, or on a building within the curtilage of a block of flats, if the block of flats is a listed building.

The practical effect is that a scheme which previously needed listed building consent alone will now need planning permission as well. That is a second application, a second fee, a second determination period and a second decision that can be refused or appealed. It also means the proposal will be assessed against the development plan and national policy in the round, not only against the statutory duty in section 16 of the 1990 Act.

We do not read this as hostility to retrofit. It looks more like tidying up an anomaly that had been in the drafting since 2015. But the timing is awkward, coming as it does while the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Historic England and Grosvenor are all pressing government to make heritage retrofit easier rather than harder.

Conservation areas: the restriction has been widened

In a conservation area or World Heritage Site, Class A has never permitted solar equipment on a wall which fronts a highway. For dwellinghouses, that restriction now extends beyond walls. From 27 August it also catches equipment installed on a balcony enclosure or roof enclosure fronting a highway, and “roof enclosure” is newly defined to include any balustrade, railing, parapet or other enclosure on the roof of a building.

This is a sensible tightening. Panels clipped to the railings of a front balcony or fixed behind a parapet on a principal elevation can be every bit as damaging to the character of a conservation area as panels on the wall itself, and until now the wording did not reach them.

Two related points are worth flagging:

• Away from a highway, dwellinghouses gain a little latitude. Wall-mounted equipment may now protrude up to 0.4 metres, rather than 0.2 metres, where the wall does not abut a highway. The 0.2 metre limit still applies where it does.
• Blocks of flats do not get that relaxation. The old 0.2 metre limits are carried forward for flats without change.

Garden arrays: the five metre rule is replaced

The change to Class B is the one most likely to catch people out. At present, stand-alone solar within five metres of the boundary of the curtilage is simply not permitted development at all, which rules out ground-mounted arrays in the great majority of ordinary gardens.

For dwellinghouses, that flat prohibition is replaced by a sliding scale of height limits. From 27 August the array must not exceed:

• 1 metre, where any part of it is within 5 metres of the boundary and forward of the principal elevation;
• 2 metres, where any part of it is within 5 metres of the boundary;
• 2 metres, where any part of it is in a conservation area and nearer to a highway bounding the curtilage than the nearest part of the house;
• 4 metres, in any other case.

The nine square metre limit on panel area stays. Arrays within the curtilage of a listed building, and on scheduled monuments, remain outside Class B altogether.

The trade-off for that relaxation is a new prior approval requirement. Where a garden array would be in a conservation area and forward of the building line, or on article 2(3) land and within five metres of the curtilage boundary, the developer must first apply to the local planning authority for a determination as to whether prior approval is required for the impact of its appearance. Article 2(3) land includes conservation areas, National Landscapes, National Parks, the Broads and World Heritage Sites, so this reaches a great deal of designated countryside as well as historic town centres. The procedure follows the familiar Class J route, with a 56 day period and publicity by site notice or neighbour notification.

In short: garden solar becomes possible in more conservation area settings than before, but it becomes a conversation with the council rather than something you can simply do.

Plug-in solar is now inside the regime

The Order inserts a definition of “plug-in solar”, meaning solar photovoltaics intended to be connected to the property’s electrical installation by a standard plug and socket, and amends the definition of “solar PV” so that it expressly includes plug-in solar.

That matters more than it sounds. Every Class A and Class B restriction now bites on plug-in kits, which are marketed as consumer products that need no installer and, by implication, no permission. They do need permission where the building is listed. There are also two new express prohibitions on fire safety grounds: plug-in solar cannot be installed on a wooden wall, balcony or enclosure, or on a timber-clad part of a building, and cannot be fixed to a wooden fence, gate, wall or other means of enclosure.

Anyone with a timber-framed or weatherboarded building should note that second point carefully.

There is a transitional year

Article 6 gives a grace period. Where development is permitted under Class A or Class B immediately before 27 August 2026, and is no longer permitted because of these amendments, it may still be carried out until the end of 26 August 2027.

So an owner of a listed house who wants roof-mounted panels has a twelve month window in which the planning permission side of the equation is still covered by permitted development. Listed building consent is unaffected and is still required. If a scheme is already designed and the consent position is being worked through, that window is worth using.

What has not changed

• Listed building consent. Permitted development grants planning permission. It has never granted listed building consent, and nothing in this Order alters that. Works to a listed building that affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest still need consent, and carrying them out without it remains a criminal offence with no limitation period.
• Article 4 directions. Where a direction has withdrawn these rights, it continues to do so.
• The Class A conditions. Equipment must still be sited, so far as practicable, to minimise its effect on the external appearance of the building and on the amenity of the area, and removed when no longer needed.
• Non-domestic solar. Classes J, K and OA are untouched, so commercial buildings and their curtilages carry on as before.

What we would suggest

If you are advising on or planning a domestic solar installation on a designated or historic building, three things are worth doing now.

First, check the date. If a scheme could be implemented under existing Class A or Class B rights, understand where it sits relative to 27 August and the 26 August 2027 transitional deadline.

Second, do not rely on an installer’s assessment of the planning position. The rules for dwellinghouses and blocks of flats now diverge, the conservation area tests have changed, and plug-in kits are caught in a way that the retail market has not yet caught up with. A lawful development certificate remains the only way to put the position beyond argument.

Third, if consent is needed, make the heritage case properly. Our experience is that well-evidenced applications succeed. We recently secured consent for solar panels on a grade II listed building in Sevenoaks, on a scheme that had been assumed to be unconsentable. The obstacle is very rarely the principle of renewable energy. It is almost always the quality of the analysis of significance, siting, reversibility and visual impact that sits behind the application. That analysis is the core of our solar panels on listed buildings service.

Heritage Unlimited advises owners, architects and planning consultants on listed building consent, solar on listed buildings, conservation area development and heritage-led retrofit. If you are considering solar, insulation, glazing or heating improvements to a historic building and want to understand the consent position before you commit, we are happy to talk it through.