Planning permission for solar panels in Hampshire

Do you need planning permission for solar panels in Hampshire? For most houses, no. Roof panels on a house are permitted development, and since 27 August 2026 the rules for conservation areas are narrower than many people expect. This guide sets out the exceptions for the four councils our Hampshire pages cover, Rushmoor (Farnborough and Aldershot), Hart (Fleet), Basingstoke and Deane, and East Hampshire (Alton, with Petersfield inside the South Downs National Park), using the national rule alongside each council’s own conservation-area and Article 4 records, as we read them on 19 October 2026. For what an installation itself involves, see our page on solar panels in Hampshire.

The short answer: permitted development, with exceptions

One national instrument governs all four councils: Class A of Part 14, Schedule 2, to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, in the version amended by S.I. 2026/896 from 27 August 2026. A house whose panels meet its conditions needs no planning application, whether it stands in Cove, Church Crookham, Brighton Hill or Holybourne. The local differences come from designations, which each council, or the national park authority, records for itself.

Watch for five situations: a conservation area, a flat roof on designated land, a garden array, a listed building and an Article 4 direction. Of those, only a listing, which takes the house out of Class A, and a direction that names solar can remove the right outright. Hampshire shows both sides of the Article 4 question within a few miles: Basingstoke has directions that bring roof panels under planning control, while Hart’s council says its directions leave solar alone.

The conditions for a pitched roof

Most Hampshire households live in houses, which is where Class A applies, and the mix differs sharply between our four districts. At the 2021 Census, 42.5% of Hart’s households and 41.8% of East Hampshire’s lived in detached houses, against 30.3% in Basingstoke and Deane and 16.5% in Rushmoor, where the semi is the commonest home at 32.1%. Basingstoke and Deane has the largest terraced share of the four, 27.1%.

The conditions for a roof-slope array are the same on every one of those houses. Panels may stand no more than 0.2 m proud of the slope and no higher than the roof’s highest point, chimneys not counted; they should be placed so they affect the building’s appearance as little as possible; and they come off once they are no longer needed. Nothing in the 0.2 m rule cares about orientation, so a Hatch Warren semi with its best slope to the street is assessed exactly like one with its best slope to the garden, unless an exception below applies. Wall-mounted panels have separate limits: 0.2 m on a wall abutting a highway, 0.4 m elsewhere.

Conservation areas in the four council areas

Basingstoke and Deane says it has more than 40 conservation areas, the largest number for any single district in Hampshire, each with an appraisal adopted as Supplementary Planning Guidance; the earliest were designated by Hampshire County Council in the early 1970s and the most recent by the borough in 2004, 2006 and 2016. East Hampshire District Council lists 43, including Alton town centre (designated 1970, revised 1982), Alton’s Anstey (1995) and The Butts (1976), Holybourne (1977) and Petersfield (1976, revised 1982, 1991 and 2013). Rushmoor has nine: Aldershot Military, Aldershot West, Basingstoke Canal, Cargate, Farnborough Hill, Manor Park, St Michael’s Abbey, South Farnborough and Farnborough Street. Hart lists Article 4 directions in 33 of its conservation areas, North Fleet among them.

None of that stops roof panels by itself. Since the 2026 amendment, the conservation-area carve-out in Class A bites only on equipment fixed to a wall, balcony or roof enclosure that fronts a highway; a roof slope, street side included, keeps the ordinary rights. A house in the South Farnborough or Holybourne conservation area is therefore in the same position as one outside it, unless it is listed or covered by a direction that names solar. Some council pages still carry older lists of conservation-area rules for walls and ground-mounted panels; where they differ from the Order as amended, ask the council which applies to your house.

Article 4 directions, council by council

Article 4 is the tool a council uses to switch off particular permitted development rights for a mapped area, and it is the only one that can withdraw roof-slope solar rights street by street. Two points decide most cases: a direction aimed at roof alterations does not by itself withdraw the separate Part 14 solar right, and a direction reaches only the land on its map. This is what each council publishes; where we saw only a summary, not the direction itself, we say so.

Basingstoke and Deane. This is the Hampshire exception that matters most. The council’s Article 4 advice says the directions in the Basingstoke Town Centre, Fairfields, South View and Brookvale West conservation areas, all Victorian or Edwardian urban areas of the town, mean planning permission is required for a range of minor work, generally where it can be seen from the street, and the list includes the installation of any solar panels, including to the roof. Its answer to what a direction does says they remove specific rights affecting the principal elevation of houses. We read the council’s summary, not the four direction documents, so on those streets read the direction wording and map for your conservation area before any design is fixed. None of the three Basingstoke and Deane directions on the government’s planning data platform, which cover houses in multiple occupation and commercial conversions, relates to solar.

Hart. Hart’s Article 4 page lists directions in 33 conservation areas covering frontage alterations, including works affecting a frontage roof slope, porches, front boundaries, painting and chimneys; North Fleet’s covers front boundaries only. Hart’s technical advice note on solar equipment on residential buildings, published in January 2025, is unusually direct: the council has a number of Article 4 directions within conservation areas which remove some permitted development rights, but they do not remove permitted development rights for solar equipment. The note also says that where permission or consent is needed, significant weight will be given to the council’s climate emergency declaration, an approach agreed by Cabinet on 4 January 2024. It predates the 27 August 2026 amendment, so check wall-mounted and garden proposals against the current Order.

Rushmoor. The council lists three current conservation-area directions: Cargate in Aldershot (confirmed 29 January 2021), Church Circle in Farnborough (in force 5 July 2019, confirmed 19 December 2019) and Wellesley (confirmed 24 July 2020). Their published summaries cover windows and doors, porches, hard surfaces, chimneys, antennas, front boundaries, garage conversions and painting; none lists solar panels. Its other directions concern employment land and town centres.

East Hampshire. We have not found an East Hampshire direction that names solar. The council’s records on the government’s planning data platform are for named sites and business estates, such as Mill Lane and Waterbrook Estate in Alton, not conservation-area rules for houses, so if your street is in doubt, ask the council before work starts.

Petersfield and the South Downs National Park

Petersfield sits wholly inside the South Downs National Park, and the South Downs National Park Authority has been the statutory planning authority for the whole park since April 2011, not East Hampshire District Council. East Hampshire’s own conservation-area table marks 19 of its 43 areas, Petersfield and Sheet among them, “SDNPA” (our count). The park is article 2(3) land. A roof-slope array on a house there keeps its permitted development rights on the ordinary conditions; what the park adds is a prior-approval determination for a flat-roof array and prior-approval requirements for some garden arrays. The authority’s Small-Scale Renewable Energy Technical Advice Note (April 2022, updated December 2025) advises checking before work starts. Our guide to solar panels inside the South Downs National Park reads that note in full.

Flat roofs and garden panels

Flat roofs have their own height limit: the equipment may rise no more than 0.6 m above the roof’s highest part. On article 2(3) land, which takes in conservation areas, National Parks, National Landscapes, the Broads and World Heritage Sites, the Order adds a step before work starts: an application asking the planning authority to decide whether it needs to approve the array’s appearance. In Hampshire that means Rushmoor for a flat-roofed extension in the Cargate conservation area, East Hampshire for one in Alton town centre, and the national park authority in Petersfield. It is a determination, not a refusal.

Panels on frames in the garden are Class B, a separate class with its own height and siting limits. Since the 2026 Order, Class B asks for a prior-approval determination where any part of a garden array would be in a conservation area and closer to a highway bounding the plot than the nearest part of the house, or on article 2(3) land within 5 metres of the plot boundary. Read the whole class against your own plot before ordering a frame.

Listed buildings

A listed house is outside Class A entirely, and so is any building in its curtilage, so there is no permitted development route. Historic England says consent is needed for any type of PV installation on a listed building, and Hart’s advice note asks for listed building consent for every grade, curtilage listing included. East Hampshire alone holds more than 1,630 listed buildings, 16 at Grade I and 69 at Grade II*. For a listed home the first call is to the council, before any installer.

Flats, mobile homes and homes you rent

Everything above is the position for a house. At the 2021 Census, purpose-built flats housed 23.2% of households in Rushmoor, 14.2% in Basingstoke and Deane, 11.8% in East Hampshire and 11.2% in Hart. In a flat the roof is usually not yours to alter without the freeholder’s consent, so consent and roof access come first, and the planning position for the building is one to confirm with the council. East Hampshire also has 353 households, 0.7%, living in a caravan or other mobile or temporary structure, where the usual house rules do not apply. And if you rent, as 21.5% of Rushmoor’s households do privately, the decision sits with the landlord.

Building regulations, MCS and SSEN

Planning sits alongside two other sets of rules. Building Regulations apply whatever the planning position: Historic England lists Parts A (structure), B (fire safety) and P (electrical safety) for every PV installation, and Hart’s note reminds householders that approval may be needed even where no planning application is. On our side, we are NAPIT member 73495, hold MCS certification for solar PV and battery storage through NAPIT, and belong to the HIES Consumer Code (HCE/A/1392).

The third is the electricity network. On NESO’s licence-area boundaries, the town centres of Farnborough, Aldershot, Fleet, Basingstoke, Alton and Petersfield all sit in SSEN’s Southern Electric Power Distribution area; Farnborough’s is the closest to UK Power Networks’ patch, about 3.4 km away, so near the Surrey border the postcode decides. Under the Energy Networks Association’s G98 rule, a system up to 16 A per phase, 3.68 kW, is notified before commissioning or no later than 28 days after it. Anything larger needs a G99 application approved before the work starts, and a 4 kW inverter, at 17.39 A, is just over that line. A battery added later goes through the same process, as our battery storage page explains.

Once planning is clear: the roof matters more than the town

PVGIS 5.3, the European Commission’s solar calculator, gives about 4,023 kWh a year from a 4 kWp array facing due south at 35° in Basingstoke (run 14 October 2026). Across our six Hampshire town points it runs from Aldershot (about 3,970 kWh) to Petersfield (about 4,128 kWh), a spread of about 158 kWh on our arithmetic (PVGIS-SARAH3 2005–2023, 14% system losses, runs of 15 October 2026). East- and west-facing roofs make less, and shading, from a tree line in Church Crookham or a neighbour’s extension, changes the answer more than the town does. Our page on solar panel cost in Hampshire sets out how an installation is priced, the national figures line by line are on solar panel installation cost, and solar panel grants in Hampshire covers the income-linked schemes, which are a separate question from planning. The one saving every household gets is set out in VAT on solar panels and batteries.

Where to check with your council

What to check before you ask for a quote

Check four things, in order. First, the designation: is your house listed, or in one of the conservation areas above, or inside the national park? Second, the Article 4 position if you live in Basingstoke’s Town Centre, Fairfields, South View or Brookvale West conservation areas. Third, the roof: pitched, flat or garden, because each sits under a different rule above. Fourth, if you live in a flat or rent, the consent you need before planning is even the question.

At the survey we look for the designations above and raise any we find before the quote: a listed building, a flat roof in a conservation area or inside the national park, a wall or balcony facing a highway, or an address in one of Basingstoke’s four Article 4 conservation areas. That gives you time to speak to the council first. The applications themselves are yours to make; we do not submit planning or prior-approval applications for customers. Town-level detail is on our pages for solar panels in Basingstoke, solar panels in Fleet, solar panels in Aldershot, solar panels in Alton and solar panels in Petersfield, and for how a quote should be itemised, see what is in a solar quote, line by line.

To talk through a Hampshire roof, get a Hampshire quote or ring 0204 547 1892. The same Order is applied to Surrey’s councils in our guide to planning permission for solar panels in Surrey.

Sources: legislation.gov.uk, Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, Schedule 2 Part 14 Classes A and B, as amended by S.I. 2026/896, in force 27 August 2026; Historic England, Consents and Permissions for PV Systems; Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, Conservation areas and Article 4 advice; planning.data.gov.uk, article-4-direction records for Basingstoke and Deane, Hart, Rushmoor and East Hampshire; Hart District Council, Article 4 Directions, and Installing solar equipment on residential buildings, Technical Advice Note (January 2025); Rushmoor Borough Council, Conservation areas, Article 4 directions, and the Cargate, Church Circle and Wellesley direction pages; East Hampshire District Council, Conservation area guidance; South Downs National Park Authority, Small-Scale Renewable Energy Technical Advice Note (April 2022, updated December 2025); ONS Census 2021, TS044 and TS054 (Nomis); NESO, GB DNO licence-area boundaries; PVGIS 5.3 (European Commission Joint Research Centre), PVGIS-SARAH3 2005–2023. All read 19 October 2026 unless dated, except Energy Networks Association EREC G98 Issue 2 (10 March 2025), read 12 October 2026, the SDNPA advice note, read 14 October 2026, and East Hampshire’s listed-building count, as carried on our Petersfield page.