Solar panels in Merton: Wimbledon's conservation areas, Merton Park's old directions and the council's own retrofit advice

Merton has 29 conservation areas, and they are concentrated in and around Wimbledon: Wimbledon Village, Wimbledon North, Wimbledon West, Wimbledon Windmill, Wimbledon Hill Road, Wimbledon Chase and Wimbledon Broadway. Further east and south they include Cricket Green in Mitcham, The Canons, Upper Morden and the long Wandle Valley area. Solar is still often possible in all of them, but the rules and the council's advice are worth understanding first.

What the national rules allow in a Merton conservation area

Under the national rules, the restriction in a conservation area or World Heritage Site applies to panels on a wall fronting a highway, not to a roof slope. Panels on a pitched roof, including a front roof slope, are normally permitted development as long as they sit no more than 0.2 m proud of the roof and below the ridge. Since 27 August 2026, a flat roof in a conservation area needs a short prior approval application to the council first.

Listed buildings are different: they need planning permission and listed building consent, whatever the roof.

Merton's household retrofit guidance is more cautious

Merton Council publishes a Household Retrofit Guidance document. On solar, it advises against panels on a roof that "fronts a road/highway" in a conservation area, and says flat roof panels in conservation areas need permission. That is the council's design advice rather than the legal test, and parts of it were written before the August 2026 changes. Where a rear or side slope works, we design for the less visible roof first and only use a street-facing slope after talking it through with you. Our guide to planning permission for solar panels in London covers the national rules in more detail.

Article 4 directions in John Innes Merton Park and Wilton Crescent

The council's Article 4 directions on houses sit in the two John Innes conservation areas either side of Kingston Road in Merton Park. They were made in 1986, around 1990 and in 2007. Because householder solar rights only arrived in 2008, none of these older directions can have removed them, and none of the documents we read mentions solar.

What they do control matters for roofing. The 2007 directions bring roof slope alterations fronting a road, and changes to external finishes "such as wall surfaces or roof slates or tiles" that affect appearance, under planning control. So if your Merton Park roof needs recovering before solar goes on, the roofing work may need permission even where the panels do not. Read whether you need a new roof before solar if your roof is near the end of its life. The council also shows a proposed direction with similar roof controls for part of Phipps Bridge Road in the Wandle Valley conservation area, and we check the status of any direction for your street before we quote.

Merton's newer Article 4 directions cover small HMOs, office to residential conversions and Wimbledon Championships marquees. They do not concern roofs or solar.

Blocks of flats in Merton

Since 27 August 2026, blocks of flats have permitted development rights for solar for the first time. The right belongs to the block, so the freeholder or management company makes the decision, not an individual flat owner. Merton's retrofit guidance still says permitted development rights do not apply to flats, which predates this change.

Connecting to the grid

Merton's electricity network is run by UK Power Networks. Most home systems are notified to them after installation, while larger systems or batteries that push the export capacity up need approval first. We handle the DNO paperwork as part of the job, and our guide to DNOs and export limits explains how system size affects it.

If you live in Merton and want to know what your roof can take, we check the designations for your address before we quote. You can request a solar and battery quotation and we will take it from there.

Local planning information checked against London Borough of Merton sources on 28 October 2026. Planning designations change, so this is general guidance, not advice for a specific property.