Scotland has its own rules
Plug-in solar became legal in Great Britain on 27 August 2026, under regulations made in July that year. Planning is a separate matter, and it is devolved. Householder permitted development in Scotland is set out in Scottish Planning Circular 1/2024, under its own classes, and the numbers in it are not the numbers you will read on a UK wide website.
We work from the Scottish classes only. If a retailer quotes you a projection limit in millimetres that came from somewhere else, it is not the rule that applies to your house.
The 1 metre allowance
Take a tape to the wall before you speak to anybody. Most of this you can settle on your own in ten minutes.
- On your house, under Class 6HA, no part of the equipment may stand more than 1 metre off the wall, the roof plane, the ridge or the chimney it is fixed to.
- On another building in your garden, under Class 6HB, the limit is 500 mm, and that building must not be in the front curtilage of the house.
- The equipment has to come down once it is no longer needed or can no longer generate.
A metre is a lot. A device on a frame that tilts away from a wall is the case where that allowance matters, and it is the reason a wall mounting is worth considering here even though a wall makes less than a roof.
Listed buildings and conservation areas
Two situations, and Scotland has a great many of both.
- A listed building, or anything inside the curtilage of one, is outside these rights. That is a separate conversation with your council and it is worth opening it early.
- In a conservation area the equipment is allowed on a rear elevation, or on a side elevation where that side does not front a road.
What the rules do not say
Scottish householder permitted development guidance does not mention plug-in solar as a category. It does not mention wooden walls, timber cladding or balconies either. So the general rules for solar panels are what applies.
We will not tell you that a timber balcony is approved in Scotland, because the guidance does not say that. What we can tell you is that the Scottish rules carry no exclusion for timber, and that where your case turns on it the person to ask is your planning authority. We will help you write the question.
What lands in your inbox
You get an email that names the Scottish class covering your surface, says what the standoff allowance means at your own wall, and gives the yearly figure for the position you asked about. Where the answer is that it will not work there, that is in the same email.
On this page
- Scotland has its own rules
- The 1 metre allowance
- Listed buildings and conservation areas
- What the rules do not say
- What lands in your inbox
Not sure about your own house?
Send us the postcode and what the surface is made of, and we will tell you which side of the line your house is on.
Send us your postcode
