Solar Panels and Permitted Development: What Changed on 27 August 2026

What changed on 27 August 2026

The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) Order 2026 — SI 2026/896 — was made on 29 July 2026 and came into force on 27 August 2026. It rewrites the solar rights in Part 14 of the 2015 Order — Class A, panels on buildings, and Class B, stand-alone arrays in gardens. Both classes now carry separate lists of limits for flats and houses, and new definitions bring plug-in solar within both. Nothing else in Part 14 is touched — the heat pump rules, relaxed in 2025, are exactly as they were.

Two practical notes. The Order was expedited without formal consultation — the explanatory memorandum cites energy price fluctuations caused by the Iran war — and it has practical effect in England only. As of 31 August 2026 the consolidated text online still showed the old wording, and the government plans no specific guidance, so summaries elsewhere may describe the old regime for a while.

Plug-in solar is finally named — and flats are in scope

Plug-in solar is defined for the first time: solar photovoltaics intended for connection to the home electricity installation by a standard plug and socket — an ordinary UK plug, the meaning borrowed from the Plugs and Sockets etc. (Safety) Regulations 1994. The definition of solar PV is amended to include it, so plug-in kits fall within Classes A and B. The government is candid that such panels may already have been permitted; the honest reading is that the Order puts the position beyond doubt rather than creating a right from nothing.

That matters most for flats, a huge share of London homes: both classes cover blocks of flats, and the rewrite gives flats their own limits with plug-in solar named inside them. The new flats wording acknowledges balconies, if only obliquely, through a fire rule barring plug-in panels from wooden walls, balconies and enclosures and from timber-clad exteriors. Beyond that, the substantive limits for flats are essentially the old ones — the relaxations below are for houses only.

Permitted development is a planning answer, nothing more. A leaseholder still needs the lease to allow the installation and, in most buildings, the freeholder's consent recorded in a licence to alter — a balcony is very often not part of the demise — and a plug-in kit raises electrical and connection questions the planning order does not touch.

Houses: reworked wall, balcony and garden limits

For houses the wall limit doubles: panels may protrude up to 0.4 metres from the plane of the wall, held at 0.2 metres where the wall abuts a highway — the stated reasons: panel angle for generation, and wind risk over a highway. Panels on a balcony or roof enclosure — a balustrade, railing or parapet — are expressly covered on the same 0.4 and 0.2 metre basis. Roof limits are unchanged: 0.2 metres proud of a pitched roof slope, nothing higher than the highest part of the roof excluding the chimney, and 0.6 metres on a flat roof.

Stand-alone solar in the garden is where houses gain most. The single-array limit goes, as does the rule keeping arrays at least 5 metres from the boundary — it survives only in World Heritage Sites. Height is now tiered, the lowest applicable figure governing: 4 metres generally, 2 metres within 5 metres of a boundary, 1 metre where that land also sits forward of the principal elevation, and 2 metres in a conservation area nearer the highway than the house. Each installation keeps the 9 square metre panel cap — the Order is silent on aggregate totals, so we would not assume unlimited area — and the old 3-metre cap on any dimension goes, expressly to suit plug-in formats of 2 by 4 or 1 by 8 metres.

Where designated inner London feels it

On protected land the traffic runs the other way. The conservation area and World Heritage Site restriction is widened: panels must not be installed on a wall, balcony or roof enclosure fronting a highway, where the old ban caught walls alone. Roof-slope panels in a conservation area remain permitted development within the general limits. A garden array in a conservation area sited nearer the highway than the building already needed a prior-approval application on its appearance; from 27 August 2026 the same step applies on other designated, article 2(3) land within 5 metres of the boundary — the trade-off for losing the 5-metre boundary exclusion. In inner London, where so much land is designated, that is the half of the Order felt most.

Listed buildings sit outside all of it. Class A is barred on a listed house or block of flats and on any building within its curtilage — wording the government describes as clarifying rather than changing the position — and Class B is barred within the whole curtilage of a listed building. Scheduled monuments are excluded too. Solar on a listed property means a planning application alongside listed building consent, as before.

The one-year transitional saving

The saving in the Order runs one way. Where an installation was permitted development immediately before 27 August 2026 and the amendments have removed that permission, it can still be carried out until the end of 26 August 2027. The new, more generous limits need no waiting and have applied since 27 August 2026. Exactly who has lost rights is not always clean-cut — balcony installations, for instance, were never expressly addressed by the old wording — so where a scheme sits near that line, a lawful development certificate puts the answer in writing.

A dated bulletin, not the evergreen guide

This bulletin records the Order as made in July 2026 and in force from 27 August 2026; it was current on 31 August 2026. The evergreen owner of this topic is our solar and heat-pump planning permission guide, updated for these changes, and still covering the heat pump rules this Order leaves alone.

If you want the route settled for a specific property before equipment is ordered — house or flat, designated land or not — that is what a £395 route review is for. It will not promise an outcome; it will tell you which rules apply and what the honest position is.