Planning permission for solar panels in Sussex

Do you need planning permission for solar panels in Sussex? For most houses, no. The question is worth asking properly here because one council’s own guidance reads more cautiously than the national rule: Horsham District Council lists adding solar panels among the alterations that may need permission in a conservation area. This guide sets out what the rule actually says and where it bites, for the three councils covering our Sussex towns, Crawley Borough, Horsham District and Mid Sussex District, and for the South Downs National Park Authority, which decides for homes inside the park. For what an installation itself involves, see our page on solar panels in Sussex.

The short answer: permitted development, with exceptions

The rule is Schedule 2, Part 14, Class A of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, as amended by S.I. 2026/896 and in force from 27 August 2026. Under Class A, solar equipment on a house is permitted development, which means no planning application, as long as it meets the conditions below. The Order reads the same in Three Bridges, Southwater and Lindfield. What changes from street to street is the designations, and in this part of Sussex there are more of them than the town names suggest: conservation areas in almost every village, a National Park along the southern edge of two districts, and the High Weald National Landscape to the north and east.

Five things can change the picture: a conservation area, a flat roof on designated land, panels in the garden rather than on the roof, a listed building and an Article 4 direction. Only two of them can remove the right outright: a listed building, which sits outside Class A altogether, and an Article 4 direction that covers solar. The other three add a condition or a step. That is the precise version of Horsham’s “may”.

The conditions for a pitched roof

Most households in all three council areas live in houses, which is where Class A applies. Adding the 2021 Census shares for detached, semi-detached and terraced homes gives 81.2% of households in Horsham district, 79.9% in Mid Sussex and 74.3% in Crawley (our arithmetic on the ONS figures). For a roof-slope array on any of those houses, the Order sets four conditions. The panels must not protrude more than 0.2 m beyond the roof slope. They must not sit higher than the highest part of the roof, excluding chimneys. They must be sited to minimise the effect on the building’s appearance. And they must be removed when no longer needed.

The 0.2 m figure is a protrusion limit and nothing more. It says nothing about which way the slope faces or whether the panels can be seen from the road. That matters most in Crawley, where terraces are 37.4% of the borough’s 45,500 households and the New Town master plan fixed whole streets to the same orientation: where a terrace’s best slope faces the street, it is judged on the same four conditions as one whose best slope faces the garden. Wall-mounted equipment has its own figures: 0.2 m where the wall abuts a highway, 0.4 m otherwise.

Conservation areas in Crawley, Horsham and Mid Sussex

Horsham district has 39 conservation areas, 17 of them with adopted character statements. Four are in Horsham town itself (the town centre, London Road, Park Terrace Gardens and Richmond Road), and the rest run through the district’s villages and small towns, from Warnham, Rusper and Slinfold in the north to Billingshurst, Henfield, Pulborough and Storrington further south. The council’s guidance lists cladding, altering the roof, extensions, satellite dishes, highway-facing fences, tree works, outbuildings, windows and doors, and adding solar panels as alterations that may need permission there, and asks residents to write to its Development Management Team or email planning@horsham.gov.uk to find out.

Mid Sussex has designated 36, between 1969 and 2003. Five are in Haywards Heath: Muster Green (1979), and The Heath, Lucastes, Franklands Village and Lewes Road (all 1989). They are not alike. Franklands Village was founded in the 1930s by the local Rotary Club as a model village, and its character rests on the uniformity of its houses; most of Lucastes dates from the 1950s and 1960s; The Heath keeps the last remaining part of the original heath as woodland in the middle of the town. Cuckfield and Lindfield, designated in 1969, are the district’s oldest.

Crawley has 13, and only some of them are old villages. Ifield Village and Worth sit alongside New Town precincts such as Queens Square and The Broadway and the Southgate and Gossops Green neighbourhood centres, plus streets such as Brighton Road, Malthouse Road, Hazelwick Road, Sunnymead, St Peters and Forestfield and Shrublands. Our post on Crawley’s conservation areas takes them one by one, including where a battery goes.

Living in any of them does not, on its own, stop you fitting roof-mounted solar. Under Class A as amended, the conservation-area exclusion applies only to equipment installed on a wall, balcony or roof enclosure which fronts a highway. Roof slopes are not restricted, and the clause draws no line between a slope that faces the street and one that faces the garden. So a house in the Lucastes or Warnham conservation area keeps its roof-slope rights on the ordinary conditions, front slope included, unless it is listed or an Article 4 direction says otherwise. Horsham’s guidance, read alongside the Order, means “check”, not “apply”.

Horsham Stone and other roofs to leave alone

Some roofs are a conservation question before they are a planning one. The Causeway in Horsham’s old centre is roofed in Horsham Stone, a local sandstone whose present-day sources the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings describes as very scarce. Mid Sussex’s own summary of the Lindfield Conservation Area lists Horsham Stone roofs among the traditional materials that give it its character, alongside clay tiles, sandstone, mathematical tiles and tile hanging. No rule in the Order singles these roofs out, but drilling fixings through a roof that cannot be re-laid in matching stone is not a trade we would make. We say so at the survey.

Flat roofs, garden panels and protected landscapes

On a flat roof, the equipment must not sit more than 0.6 m above the highest part of the roof. On article 2(3) land, which under the Order includes conservation areas, National Landscapes and National Parks, a flat-roof array also needs an application for a determination on whether prior approval of its appearance is required, made before work starts. It is a step, not a refusal.

That step catches more of this area than the conservation-area maps alone suggest. The South Downs National Park runs along the southern edge of Horsham and Mid Sussex districts, and inside it the South Downs National Park Authority, the planning authority for the whole park since April 2011, decides, not the district council. Horsham District Council says plainly that applications for properties in the park are managed by the National Park Authority, and Mid Sussex notes that its Fulking Conservation Area is now within the park. To the north and east, Crawley, Horsham and Mid Sussex councils all sit on the High Weald Joint Advisory Committee, the 15 local authorities that work together to care for the High Weald National Landscape, so check whether your address falls inside it. If you are unsure whether your home is on article 2(3) land, the council’s planning team can confirm it for your address.

Stand-alone panels in the garden are not Class A at all; they fall under Class B. Under the 2026 Order, a prior-approval determination is needed first where any part of the array would sit in a conservation area and nearer to a highway that bounds the curtilage (the land that goes with the house) than the part of the house nearest that highway, or on article 2(3) land within 5 metres of the curtilage boundary. With 37.2% of Horsham district’s households in detached houses, plenty of plots are large enough for a garden array, and in a village such as Rudgwick or West Chiltington the position of the array is what decides whether that step applies. Class B has further limits of its own, so read it in full against your plot before anyone measures up.

Listed buildings

Listed buildings are the clear exception. Class A does not permit solar on a house, or on a building within its curtilage, if the house is listed, so the permitted development route is closed. Separately, Historic England says consent is required for any type of PV installation on a listed building. In the older parts of Horsham, Cuckfield, Lindfield or Ifield Village, check the listing before anything else; Horsham District Council, Mid Sussex District Council and Crawley Borough Council each answer that question for an address. If your house is listed, the conversation starts with the council, not with an installer.

Article 4 directions, council by council

An Article 4 direction lets a council remove permitted development rights in a defined area, and it is the one mechanism that can take roof-slope rights away street by street. Two readings matter. A direction that removes roof-alteration rights does not automatically remove the separate right to install solar, and a direction applies only to the land it names. The three councils use them very differently.

Crawley. The council’s page lists four groups. Directions confirmed on 1 August 2022 cover the main employment areas at Manor Royal, Maidenbower Business Park, Lowfield Heath, Three Bridges Corridor and Tilgate Forest Business Centre, and remove the right to turn commercial premises into homes. Ten confirmed on 15 June 2022 remove the right to turn a house into a small house in multiple occupation at named streets in Furnace Green, Ifield, Three Bridges, Southgate, Pound Hill and West Green. A 2004 direction at Land at Westfield Place covers gates, walls and fences. And three historic directions, from 1958, 1965 and 1972, cover land in the north of the borough; their titles name parts of Dorking, Horley and Godstone, land at Balcombe Road, and land in the county of Surrey, and we have not read their texts. None of the 2004 and 2022 directions is about roofs or solar.

Horsham. The national planning data platform holds 53 Horsham district records, and most are directions on parcels of land, such as at Thakeham, Slinfold and Copsale, rather than on houses; several are marked as never confirmed or withdrawn. Three touch homes: one relating to the Slinfold Conservation Area (1997), one relating to the Amberley Conservation Area (1997) and one relating to 11, 13, 15 and 19 Denne Road in Horsham (2001). The records give only short descriptions, so if you live in any of them, check the direction with the council, or for Amberley the National Park Authority, before work starts.

Mid Sussex. The council’s conservation-area summary records two. In 1995 it made an Article 4(2) direction over part of the Cuckfield Conservation Area, and another over part of Lindfield’s, extended in 1998 to include Compton Road; the stated purpose of both is to control unsympathetic alterations to dwelling houses. None of the five Haywards Heath conservation areas is described as having one. The summary does not list the classes the Cuckfield and Lindfield directions cover, so residents there should ask the council first.

Flats, and homes you rent

Everything above is the position for a house. Flats are not spread evenly: purpose-built blocks hold 27.3% of homes in Haywards Heath parish against 15.5% of households across Mid Sussex district, 23.8% in Crawley and 15.6% in Horsham district (2021 Census). In a flat the roof is usually not yours to alter without the freeholder’s consent, and roof space rarely divides neatly between leaseholders, so the first question is consent and roof access rather than planning; the planning position for the building is one to confirm with the council. Renting changes who decides, too. In Crawley 17.5% of households rent directly from the council and 19.8% rent privately; in Horsham and Mid Sussex district fewer than one household in fifty rents from the council. If you rent, the decision sits with your landlord.

Building regulations, MCS and UK Power Networks

Planning is one of three sets of paperwork. The second is the Building Regulations. Historic England notes that all PV installations must comply with Building Regulations Parts A (structure), B (fire safety) and P (electrical safety), with Building Control notified. We are a NAPIT member (73495); NAPIT is a government-approved scheme for registering electrical installers, and it covers the electrical work in every installation. We are also MCS-certified for solar PV and battery storage, with certification held via NAPIT, and HIES Consumer Code members (HCE/A/1392). Smart Export Guarantee payments need an MCS certificate (or an accredited equivalent), which arrives with the electrical certification after the installation is registered.

The third is the electricity network. UK Power Networks’ licence boundaries put the town centres of Horsham, Crawley and Haywards Heath in its South Eastern Power Networks area. Horsham’s centre is about 2.9 km from SSEN’s Southern Electric area, so towards the west of the district the postcode decides which operator you are on. 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. UK Power Networks says it automatically approves an application where the installation’s maximum export, after any export limitation, is under 5 kW. The installer contacts the network operator on your behalf. If no supply upgrade is needed there is nothing to pay UK Power Networks; if one is, it says the cost and timing vary from project to project.

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

PVGIS 5.3, the European Commission’s solar calculator, gives about 4,099 kWh a year from a 4 kWp array facing due south at 35° in Horsham, about 4,020 kWh in Crawley and about 4,246 kWh in Haywards Heath (PVGIS-SARAH3 2005–2023, 14% system losses; runs on 17 September, 16 September and 19 October 2026). The spread across the three is about 226 kWh (our arithmetic). The Energy Saving Trust says an east- or west-facing roof gets around 15–20% less than a south-facing one, about 600 kWh or more on these figures, and shading can cost more than that, so the roof changes the answer more than the town does. Our page on solar panel cost in Sussex sets out how an installation is priced, the UK solar panel installation cost page has the national figures line by line, and solar panel grants in Sussex covers the income-linked schemes, which are a separate question from planning. If a battery is part of the plan, the town pages for solar panels Horsham, solar panels Crawley and solar panels Haywards Heath carry each town’s own figures.

Where to check with your council

What to check before you ask for a quote

Check three things, in order. First, the designation: is your house in one of the conservation areas above, inside the South Downs National Park or the High Weald, or listed, or within the curtilage of a listed building? Second, the Article 4 position if you live in the parts of Cuckfield or Lindfield the Mid Sussex directions cover, in the Slinfold or Amberley conservation areas or on Denne Road in Horsham. Third, the roof: pitched, flat, garden or Horsham Stone, because each sits under a different rule or judgement above.

Then ask the installer to screen designations at the survey. We do: a listed building, a flat roof on article 2(3) land, a highway-facing wall or balcony, a Horsham Stone roof, or a property in one of those Article 4 areas gets flagged before a quote is written, so the conversation with Crawley, Horsham, Mid Sussex or the National Park Authority happens first. We do not make planning or prior-approval applications on a customer’s behalf, and we would rather say so at the survey than leave you to find out later.

Get a Sussex quote through our contact page, or call 0204 547 1892. One of Crawley’s historic directions is titled land in the county of Surrey; for the same national rule applied to Surrey’s councils, see 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 (read 15 October 2026); Historic England, Consents and Permissions for PV Systems (read 15 October 2026); Horsham District Council, Conservation areas and planning permission; Mid Sussex District Council, Conservation Areas page and Conservation Areas in Mid Sussex (August 2018); Crawley Borough Council, Article 4 Directions; planning.data.gov.uk conservation-area and article-4-direction-area datasets for Crawley, Horsham and Mid Sussex; High Weald National Landscape, Joint Advisory Committee; ONS Census 2021, TS044 Accommodation type and TS054 Tenure (Nomis), and TS044 for Haywards Heath civil parish via censusdata.uk; UK Power Networks licence boundaries and Solar panels and energy storage: cost, time and what’s involved (read 15 October 2026); PVGIS 5.3 (European Commission Joint Research Centre), PVGIS-SARAH3 2005–2023, Haywards Heath re-run 19 October 2026; Energy Saving Trust, Solar panels: costs, savings and benefits explained (updated 27 August 2026), on east- and west-facing roofs. All read 19 October 2026 unless dated, except Energy Networks Association EREC G98 Issue 2 (10 March 2025), read 12 October 2026; the South Downs National Park Authority’s planning role (since April 2011) is from our 14 October 2026 fact pack; Horsham Stone and the Horsham character-statement count are as cited on our Horsham page.