In 1903 the London County Council began building two-storey cottages on land between White Hart Lane and Lordship Lane. That first phase of its White Hart Lane Estate, with a section built after the First World War, is now the Tower Gardens Conservation Area, and Haringey’s appraisal counts it among the three seminal LCC suburban cottage estates of the pre-war period. More than a century on, it is the main reason planning comes up whenever someone in Tottenham asks about panels or a battery.
This guide maps the rules street by street: the two conservation areas with Article 4 directions, the five along the High Road without them, and what each means for panels and for a battery unit. For the network paperwork, renters’ options and the Warm Homes grant warning, see our page on battery storage in Tottenham.
Tottenham’s conservation areas at a glance
Tower Gardens was designated on 22 September 1978, and the small Peabody Cottages area beside Risley Avenue on 16 September 1991. Along the High Road, the Tottenham High Road Historic Corridor is five conservation areas: North Tottenham (28 March 1972), Tottenham Green (26 March 1976), Scotland Green (22 February 1990), Bruce Grove (16 September 1991) and Seven Sisters/Page Green (13 July 1998). Bruce Castle is a conservation area too. Haringey’s list shows Article 4 directions in only four of the borough’s conservation areas, and two of them are in Tottenham: Tower Gardens and Peabody Cottages.
Tower Gardens and Peabody Cottages: the street-elevation rule
Both directions were made on 16 December 2019, confirmed on 17 December 2020 and came into force on 21 December 2020. Each withdraws Part 14 Class A of the permitted-development order, the right to install solar equipment on a house, on the street elevations of properties in the area. In plain terms, panels on the front of a Tower Gardens cottage need planning permission.
The appraisal goes further on what is acceptable. At paragraph 3.5.9 it says panels on facades or roof slopes visible from the street are not appropriate, but that discreetly located installations on hidden elevations or rear roof slopes may be. All the Tower Gardens houses are two storeys high, so a rear slope on a cottage terrace often holds a modest array, and a battery should be sized to what that array actually makes rather than to a catalogue figure. Our guide to what size home battery you need explains the method.
The High Road corridor: the national rule applies
In North Tottenham, Tottenham Green, Scotland Green, Bruce Grove and Seven Sisters/Page Green, and around Bruce Castle, Haringey’s list shows no Article 4 direction. The national rule therefore applies. Under Part 14 Class A of the permitted-development order, as amended on 27 August 2026, a conservation area excludes only solar equipment on a wall, balcony or roof enclosure fronting a highway. Roof slopes, front ones included, keep their rights, provided panels sit no more than 0.2 m proud of the slope and no higher than the highest part of the roof, chimneys aside. A flat-roof array in a conservation area needs a prior-approval determination from the council before work starts.
Haringey’s own guidance sets the tone above that legal floor: micro-generation such as solar panels in conservation areas will be accommodated where possible, in ways that do not harm the historic environment, with equipment installed in discreet locations.
Where the battery itself goes
The two Tottenham directions name solar equipment, not batteries, and a battery fitted inside the house changes nothing on any elevation. That makes indoor siting the simple answer in every Tottenham conservation area. Terraces are 28.6% of homes across Tottenham’s eight wards (our sum of the 2021 Census ward counts), and in a mid-terrace with no side access the battery usually goes in an understairs cupboard or a rear room near the consumer unit. From the street, nothing changes.
An outdoor unit is a different question. Keep it on a rear wall, out of sight of the road, and in Tower Gardens or Peabody Cottages ask Haringey before fixing anything to a street elevation.
Listed buildings
Historic England says consent is required for installing any type of solar PV system on a listed building, and permitted-development rights for solar do not apply to one. A battery fixed to a listed building’s fabric, or cabling run through it, is also worth putting to Haringey before work starts. If your house is listed, the conversation with the council comes before the quote, not after.
Tenants, flats and council homes
Planning is only one layer. Across Tottenham’s eight wards, 28.3% of households own their home and 69.0% rent socially or privately (our sums of the 2021 Census counts), and 39.4% live in purpose-built flats. For most of those homes, a landlord or freeholder decides before a planning officer ever does. On Tower Gardens North, Haringey announced in March 2025 a Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund retrofit of around 200 street properties, shared with the Coldfall Estate in N10, as the start of a programme to retrofit all 15,000 council homes.
Before you commission anything
Check your address against Haringey’s conservation-area map, and if it falls in Tower Gardens or Peabody Cottages, plan panels for the rear slope from the start. Our solar panels in Tottenham page covers the roof side in more detail, and our solar panels in North London hub compares the neighbouring boroughs’ rules. We check the designations for your address before designing, and if the only workable layout would not pay its way, we will say so.
Sources: London Borough of Haringey, Tower Gardens Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan (adopted July 2019), list of conservation areas in Haringey, development in conservation areas, and energy efficiency in conservation areas; London Borough of Haringey, Article 4(1) directions for the Tower Gardens and Peabody Cottages Conservation Areas (made 16 December 2019, confirmed 17 December 2020); London Borough of Haringey news, 25 March 2025; legislation.gov.uk, Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, Schedule 2 Part 14, as amended by S.I. 2026/896; Historic England, Installing photovoltaics: consents and permissions; ONS Census 2021, TS044 and TS054, Tottenham’s eight wards, via Nomis (sums ours).