Charnwood Borough Council - Leading in Leicestershire

DOMESTIC WIND TURBINES

The need - or not - for planning permission for wind turbines has been the subject of some debate, in part sparked off by the marketing by B&Q of a range of domestic energy saving devices. In the case of turbines, the company's advice is that they generally do not require planning permission unless they are in a Conservation Area or affected a listed building. The prevailing view in the planning profession is that this is not correct. Whether or not such installations need specific planning permission currently has to be assessed in the same way as any other alteration, improvement or extension to a dwelling, as set out in the Town and Country Planning General Permitted Development Order 1995 (GPDO).

If an installation is to be fixed to the wall of a house, planning permission would not be required only if it meets the following conditions (Class A, Part 1, Schedule 2 of the GPDO).
It would not:-

• Exceed the volume of the original dwelling beyond the limits that apply to any other form of extension, i.e. the 70 cubic metres allowance (50 cubic metres for terraced house or in conservation areas). This volume is to be calculated cumulatively with any post-1948 extensions and all other buildings within 5 metres of the dwelling.
• Exceed the highest part of the roof.
• Come closer to any highway boundary than the original dwelling - unless over 20 metres away.
• Be higher than 4 metres within 2 metres of the boundary.
• Be fixed to the roof.

If is to be fixed to the roof (GPDO Class B) planning permission would not be required if it does not :-

• project above the highest part of the roof
• Extend beyond any plane of a roof that fronts a highway
• Extend the volume of the dwelling by more than 40 of 50 cubic metres depending on the type of house or the cubic contents set out above.

Any freestanding turbine within the curtilage (GDPO Class E would require permission if it:-

• Exceeds 3m in height,
• Comes nearer to any highway than the nearest part of the "original house", unless it would still be over 20 metres away.

The "volume" of the wind turbine will be the physical volume of the structure of the installation, not including the "volume" of the span of the blades in motion.

The term "highway" includes public roads, footpaths, bridleways and byways.

To establish if permission is needed, we ask people to complete a Householder Enquiry Form together with a dimensioned diagram. This is so that we can check site history and go through the various factors that determine whether or not planning permission would need to be sought.

Although the government announced recently that it would relax development restrictions on domestic wind turbines, no changes have yet been made to the GPDO.