The answer first
A stand-alone array in the grounds of a house is permitted development up to 9 m², within height limits set in the Order. In the conservation area it needs the council’s prior approval if it would sit nearer the highway than the house. Anything larger needs planning permission, and footings, a cable trench and hedge shade all shape the job.
What counts as a stand-alone array
A ground-mounted or stand-alone array is a set of panels on its own frame, not fixed to any building. In planning terms it falls under Class B of Part 14 of the General Permitted Development Order, as amended in 2026 by SI 2026/896. Class B lets a house have such an array within its grounds without a planning application, provided the array stays within 9 m² and within the height limits the Order sets. Read the Order itself for the current height figures, because they are conditions, not guidance, and the 2026 amendment rewrote parts of Part 14.
Nine square metres is a small array. With panels of the size now common on houses it holds only four or so, well short of what a typical roof takes. That makes the garden allowance useful for topping up a small roof, or for a house whose roof cannot be used, but it is rarely a substitute for a full roof system on its own.
Inside the conservation area
In the Nantwich conservation area, a stand-alone array can still be permitted development, with one extra step. If the array would stand closer to a road than the house itself does, the council’s prior approval is needed before work starts. In practice that catches front gardens and many side gardens on corner plots. An array tucked behind the house, further from the road than the house itself, avoids that step, though the size and height conditions still apply. What else the conservation area changes is set out on the conservation-area page.
For a listed house, assume that panels anywhere in its grounds need a conversation with the council first, since the setting of a listed building is itself a planning matter. The steps for listed homes are on listed buildings and solar, and the National Heritage List confirms whether a building is listed.
Bigger than 9 m²: a planning application
Anything over the Class B allowance needs planning permission. So may an array placed beyond the garden, because a paddock or field beside a house is not necessarily within its curtilage, the planning term for the land that belongs with a dwelling. An application will be judged on its effect on neighbours, on the look of the countryside and on any listed building or conservation area nearby, and a clear drawing with heights, distances and screening helps. Ask the council’s planning team about the site before paying for a full design.
Who has the space
Ground arrays need room, and room tracks house type. Census 2021 puts detached houses at 39.5% of households in Nantwich South and Stapeley but 16.6% in Nantwich North and West, where flats and terraces are far more common. In the village wards of Audlem, Wrenbury, Bunbury and Wybunbury the share runs from 49.9% to 65.9%, against 36.6% for Cheshire East as a whole. A detached house is not the same thing as a large garden, but it is a fair signal of where the option is most likely to be open. Ward-by-ward figures are on Nantwich homes by ward, and the village heating picture is on off-gas villages.
Footings, frames and the ground beneath
A ground array is a small structure. Its frame is usually aluminium or galvanised steel, held down by ground screws, driven posts, concrete pads or, where the ground cannot be dug, ballast. The choice depends on the soil, the drainage and the slope, and those can change from one end of a garden to the other. Wet or soft ground may need deeper fixings; buried services, old foundations or tree roots may rule out a spot altogether.
The frame has to resist wind trying to lift the panels as well as their weight pressing down, which is why the footing design matters more than it looks. Ask the firm what footing it proposes, how it assessed the ground, and whether the frame and fixings come with a design calculation. Leave room around the array for mowing and for reaching the panels, and think about livestock, children and security if the spot is open.
The trench back to the house
Electricity from a garden array has to travel to the consumer unit, usually through armoured cable buried in a trench. The longer that run, the larger the cable must be to keep losses down, and the more digging and making good is involved. Crossing a lawn is one thing; lifting block paving or a tarmac drive and relaying it is another. Where the inverter goes, at the array or at the house, changes what runs through the trench and the protection needed at each end.
Ask for the trench route on a plan with its length, depth and cable size, and for the digging, the cable and the reinstatement to be priced separately. Make sure the route is recorded, with a copy kept with the house papers, so nobody later puts a fence post or a pond through it.
Hedges, trees and a low winter sun
Shade is the weakness of most ground arrays. Panels close to the ground sit in the shadow of hedges, fences and trees that a roof would clear. The sun is low from autumn to early spring, so shadows lengthen just when output is already small: PVGIS 5.3 models about 31 kWh per kWp in December for a south-facing 35° array near Nantwich, against about 118 in June. A hedge that costs little in summer can wipe out much of the winter output.
Ask for a shading assessment made from the spot where the array would stand, not from the roof, and make sure it allows for growth: a young hedge or tree that does no harm today may cast a long shadow within a few years. Rows set one behind another need enough spacing that the front row does not shade the back. Trees in a conservation area are protected in their own right, and most work on them needs six weeks’ notice to the council, so cutting back to clear a shadow is not always quick. How direction and pitch change output is shown on output on a Nantwich roof.
Questions to put to a firm about a garden array
- Which planning route applies, and does the array stay within 9 m² and the height limits in the Order?
- Would it stand nearer the highway than the house, and if so, who applies for prior approval and when?
- What footing is proposed, and what assessment of the ground was it based on?
- Where does the trench run, how deep is it, and what size of cable goes in it?
- Where was the shading measured from, and does the output estimate allow for winter shadows?
Cost and connection
A ground array usually costs more per kW than the same panels on a roof, because the frame, the footings and the trench replace scaffold and roof hooks. Ask for those items as separate lines and compare them with the price guide on solar costs. The array’s inverter counts towards the same connection limits as any other system, so read grid connection before settling the size, and use the question form if the planning position for a particular garden is unclear.