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Dish and aerial planning regulations

november 2010

Freesat Freeview euro tv skyThe best kit, The best programmes

2 What Satellite & Digital TV november 2010

Even Sky and Freesat dishes have to obey planning regulations, though they’re not always enforced, and bigger dishes must always be placed with care

For most folk, installing a Freesat or Sky dish needn’t involve any thought of planning permission.

However, installing any dish, anywhere on the property is considered a ‘development’, although there is automatic planning permission to cover most dishes in most situations, called ‘permitted developments’.

If you are investing in a larger dish, there are already dishes on the building, your home is in a special location, or you need to position the dish in a very visible position, you may need to apply for planning permission to have your antenna.

How big a dish am I allowed?To install a dish as a permitted

development, it should be 100cm or less across its largest dimension – for a typical offset dish design, this is the largest width or height of the reflector, without including the reinforcing rim around the edge.

You can also put up a second dish on the building of up to 60cm diameter (big enough for Freesat or Sky anywhere in the UK) so two residents of a block of flats can have individual dishes (if more want dishes, you are expected to get a communal system) but there can be no more than two dishes on the building (regardless of who they belong to) without planning permission.

If you live in a block of flats, or other building over 15m in height (about five storeys) then the whole building can have up to four dishes, each of 1.3m diameter, but the chances are that individual dishes will be prohibited here anyway, and the rules are really to accommodate communal systems.

Where can I put my dishes?The rules on where a dish can be

placed on a building without requiring a planning application are quite complex. A dish of any size (up to the maximum allowed for a permitted development) can go anywhere on the building, as long as it doesn’t protrude above the top of

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planning permiSSion

The dish sizes permitted with planning permission on a low-rise (less than 15m) building

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november 2010 What Satellite & Digital TV 3

ABC guide to...

The permitted positions for a dish without planning permission

the roof (the ridge tiles) or, if there is a chimney, the lower of the top of the chimney or 60cm above the ridge tiles.

Dishes of up to 60cm diameter can also be mounted on the chimney itself (again, not above the top of it).

For high-rise buildings, the rules are similar but the dishes can protrude up to 3m above the top of the roof.

bear in mind that automatic planning permission also has a requirement to site the dish with care, and sympathetically to the environment. Flagrant breaches are likely to be retrospectively caught by the local council. So nailing up even a minidish above the front door could be deemed by the council to require planning permission.

Do these rules apply to all homes?The rules on permitted

developments don’t apply if the building is in a conservation area, a national Park, an area of outstanding natural beauty, or in the norfolk or Suffolk broads. In these cases a dish must also not be visible from the road (or broads waterway).

If the home is listed then you also have to apply for Listed buildings Consent for any dish, whatever its size or position. The application (to your local council Conservation Department) is free but the process can be long, complex, and prone to difficulties.

Installation of dishes on leasehold and rented properties (both council and privately owned flats and houses) will require permission from the landlord and may even be prohibited outright.

Who is responsible for getting planning permission?

It is entirely the responsibility of the dish owner to obtain any planning permission for a satellite dish, and not the retailer or installer. However, any decent installer should be at least reasonably acquainted with the rules and regulations, and should be able to act as unofficial adviser.

How do I apply for planning permission?

before you apply for planning permission contact the Local Planning Authority (your council’s planning department) and ask for advice – there may be local considerations or even permission waivers for dishes – and talk to your neighbours to forewarn them and to ward off their concerns in your application. Then you need to get the forms, and fill them out with as much detail as possible.

A planning application costs £150 (in england), payable on application, so it’s only sensible to ensure that you have included all the evidence and every argument for the dish that you can

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muster. Include photographs of the building (especially from the road) and the intended dish, plans, diagrams and so on – anything to show how you are mitigating the effects of the dish on the looks of the building and character of the area.

You should also point out any special reasons why you need a larger-than-normal dish (say, for foreign language broadcasts for learning a language or foreign residents) or one in a particular position (such as it being the only place where the signal can be received).

many councils prefer to handle the whole process online. The UK Planning Portal (www.planningportal.gov.uk) has guidance on completing the forms and lots of information about the process. Unless your project is hugely contentious it will probably be decided by one of the council planning officers and you’ll have the decision within eight weeks.

What happens if the plan is refused?

If your application is refused, or accepted

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with conditions that you cannot bear, you can reapply with an amended proposal to accommodate a specific objection (say, offer to re-site the dish, or paint it to blend in better with the surrounding wall colour).

If you reapply within 12 months, the second application is usually free.

Again, putting in the groundwork of discussing with the planning officer exactly what is the problem and how it might be alleviated will pay dividends.

You can also appeal against a planning decision, to an Inspector appointed by central government.

However, this is more for cases where the applicant believes that the process was in error or unfair – not simply because you disagree with the decision made.

but it needn’t come to that; if you do all your homework in the first place, the chances are that your application – like the vast majority of planning applications – will be passed and you can install the antenna system you desire. It’s all in the preparation n Geoff Bains

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EXISTING DISH ON

BUILDINGNONE 45CM 60CM 70CM 80CM 90CM 1.0 m 1.2 m

DISH ALLOWED WITHOUT PLANNING PERMISSION