A home battery is not mentioned anywhere in the part of planning law that governs solar panels. That one fact explains most of the confusion about planning in Brentwood: people hear that panels have rules in conservation areas and assume a battery must have the same ones. It does not, though a battery on the wrong wall of the wrong house can still need a conversation with the council. This guide separates the two, then walks through what Brentwood’s green belt, its 13 conservation areas and its listed houses mean for each. For where a battery fits in Brentwood’s houses and flats, and how UK Power Networks is told, see our page on battery storage in Brentwood.
The planning position below reflects the General Permitted Development Order as amended from 27 August 2026, read on legislation.gov.uk. It is guidance, not a planning determination; the council decides cases.
Panels and batteries are different kinds of equipment
Part 14 of the General Permitted Development Order deals with renewable energy. Its Class A covers solar PV and solar thermal equipment on a house: panels on a pitched roof are permitted development if they protrude no more than 0.2 m from the roof slope and sit no higher than the highest part of the roof, excluding chimneys, and they should be sited to minimise the effect on the building’s appearance. A flat-roof array has its own limit of 0.6 m above the highest part of the roof.
A home battery is not panel equipment. We have found no planning rule written specifically for domestic batteries, so we will not quote one. The practical point is visibility: a battery inside a garage, utility room or cupboard changes nothing that planning controls look at. An external unit is a different matter in a protected setting, which is where the rest of this guide comes in.
The green belt: big on the map, small for a roof
Green belt covers 89% of Brentwood borough, on the council’s own Local Plan topic paper, with the remaining 11% predominantly built up. It shapes what can be built, but it is not one of the “article 2(3)” designations that add conditions to householder solar. Those are conservation areas, National Landscapes, National Parks, the Broads and World Heritage Sites. So a house in the green belt keeps its roof-mounted rights on the usual conditions. Stand-alone panels in a garden are a separate class, with height limits and their own conditions.
The 13 conservation areas
Brentwood has 13 conservation areas. They run from Ingatestone High Street, adopted on 27 November 1969, to Brentwood Town Centre, created in 2000 by combining the earlier Wilson’s Corner, Chapel and Hart Street areas. Three of the 13, Weald Park (adopted 22 July 1993), Thorndon Park and Warley Place, are historic parks and gardens rather than streets of houses.
Since 27 August 2026 the conservation-area rule for panels is narrow: the exclusion applies only to equipment on a wall, balcony or roof enclosure that fronts a highway. Roof slopes are not restricted, front ones included. A flat-roof array in a conservation area needs an application to the council for a determination on whether prior approval of its appearance is required, before work starts.
For a battery in these areas, the sensible course follows from the same logic. Indoors, or on a rear wall out of public view, it raises nothing. On a wall facing the street in the Town Centre or Ingatestone High Street, ask the council first.
Article 4 directions
An Article 4 direction is the one tool that can remove permitted development rights street by street, and it is the document to read, because a direction that removes roof-alteration rights does not automatically remove the separate right to install solar. We have not found an Article 4 direction for Brentwood listed on the government’s planning data platform, but the council’s own records are the authority. If you live in a conservation area, check before any design is fixed, and we will do the same before quoting.
Listed houses
Class A does not apply to a listed house or to a building within its curtilage, so panels on a listed building need listed building consent. The Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 requires consent for works that would affect a listed building’s special character, and that can include work inside, so a wall-mounted battery in a listed house is not automatically exempt. Talk to the council before paying for a design.
Flats: consent that is not planning
At the 2021 Census, 29.4% of households in Brentwood’s built-up area lived in flats or maisonettes. For them the first yes is the freeholder’s or managing agent’s, not the council’s, and a tenant needs the landlord’s agreement as well. That consent is separate from planning, and it comes first.
The grid step is separate again
Planning and the grid are two different approvals. Central Brentwood is in UK Power Networks’ Eastern Power Networks area. A system whose inverters total up to 16 A per phase (3.68 kW) is notified under G98, before commissioning or within 28 days of it; above that, G99 approval comes before work starts. UK Power Networks automatically approves applications whose maximum export, after any export limitation, is under 5 kW. Your installer handles that application.
Before you commit
Check three things in order: whether your house is listed, whether it is in one of the 13 conservation areas, and whether any Article 4 direction applies to your street. For most Brentwood houses all three answers are no, and panels and a battery are a straightforward job. Our guide to what size home battery you need covers sizing; for the roof, see solar panels in Brentwood, and for county schemes, the Essex solar panels hub.
Sources: legislation.gov.uk, The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, Schedule 2, Part 14, as amended by S.I. 2026/896 (in force 27 August 2026); Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990; Brentwood Local Plan, F8 Green Belt Topic Paper (September 2020), para 2.1; Brentwood Borough Council, Conservation areas; planning.data.gov.uk, article-4-direction-area dataset; ONS, Towns and cities, characteristics of built-up areas: Census 2021, table 5c, Brentwood BUA E63004713; UK Power Networks, Licence Boundaries open dataset and Solar and storage: cost, time and what’s involved (read 15 October 2026); Energy Networks Association, EREC G98 Issue 2 (10 March 2025).