Planning answer
Does a roof lantern need planning permission?
Planning law treats a lantern as a rooflight, so the answer hinges on two things: whether your home is a house or a flat, and how high the finished lantern rises over the roof.
The answer
On a house in England, a roof lantern is a rooflight under Class C permitted development, so it needs no planning application if it projects no more than 150mm beyond the plane of the roof and sits no higher than the highest part of the roof. Lanterns often stand taller than 150mm, and then planning permission is needed. On any flat or maisonette, including a Tyneside flat, a new lantern needs planning permission.
How is the 150mm measured on a flat roof?
From the surface of the flat roof to the highest point of the installed lantern. Because the kerb lifts the frame before the glass even begins, the allowance can be used up quickly.
Class C talks about projection beyond the plane of the roof slope. On a flat roof, that plane is the roof surface. The figure to look at is how far the finished installation stands proud of it, from the covering up to the top of the glass.
Why lanterns tend to exceed it
A lantern sits on a kerb. Manufacturers set minimum upstand heights, commonly around 150mm above the finished roof, to keep water and snow off the frame. The lantern's sloping glass then rises from the top of that kerb to a ridge or a peak. Add the two and the total is often well past 150mm, which puts the lantern outside Class C and means a planning application. A slim flat rooflight on a low upstand has a better chance of staying within it, though the upstand alone can reach the limit.
Ask for the number
Before you order anything, get the lantern's total height over the roof surface, including the kerb, in writing. At our survey we take the roof measurements and work that height out from the design, so you know which route applies before a single part is made.
What if my home is a Tyneside flat?
Then planning permission is needed whatever the lantern's height, because flats have no householder permitted development. Your property papers may also give the neighbouring flat's owner a say.
Householder permitted development rights belong to houses. Flats and maisonettes do not have them, and a Tyneside flat is a flat in planning terms, whether it is the upstairs or the downstairs one. So a lantern on the back offshoot of a downstairs flat needs a planning application to the council, even if the identical lantern would sit within the 150mm limit on the house next door.
The application goes to the council for your area: Newcastle City Council within the city, or Gateshead Council, North Tyneside Council, South Tyneside Council, Sunderland City Council, Durham County Council or Northumberland County Council beyond it.
The neighbour and the paperwork
A grant of permission does not settle who may alter the roof. That is a matter for the property documents. Ask to see your flat's title or lease, find what it says about the roof over the offshoot, and talk to the other owner before the application goes in. Where the wording is hard to follow, a solicitor can explain it to you; what we can advise on is the roof itself.
Can anything else change the answer for a house?
Yes. An Article 4 direction or a condition on an earlier permission can remove Class C. A conservation area alone does not. A listed house needs listed building consent.
A house keeps its Class C rights unless something takes them away, and two things can. An Article 4 direction, made by the council for a defined area, can remove Class C. A condition on an earlier planning permission can do the same. That second one deserves a look on a house whose kitchen extension was itself approved by a planning application, because the decision notice may restrict later alterations.
A conservation area on its own does not remove Class C for a rooflight on a house. A listed house keeps Class C on the planning side, but almost any rooflight on it needs listed building consent, and that consent decides the job. Your council's planning team can tell you whether an Article 4 direction or a condition covers your address.
Lanterns in extensions still to be built
If the lantern is part of an extension that has not gone up yet, the extension's own planning route comes first, and the lantern is part of that design. Our guide to rooflight planning permission shows how the rules for each kind of home fit together.
Is planning the only approval a lantern needs?
No. Cutting a new opening is building work, so it is notified to Building Control whether or not planning applies. Sending that notice is part of our work on every new opening.
Planning and Building Regulations are separate systems answering different questions. Planning asks whether the lantern is acceptable where it sits. Building Regulations ask whether the work is built safely and to the required standard.
What Building Control looks at
Cutting a new opening in a roof is building work. It is notified to Building Control: the local authority or a registered building control approver. The structure around the opening, including the trimmers and any beam, is part of what they consider, along with thermal performance. Under Part L, for an existing dwelling in England, the limiting U-value for a rooflight is 2.2 W/m²K.
Who deals with it
We deal with the notification. Once the work is signed off, the completion certificate comes to you, and it belongs in the same folder as any planning decision for the day the house is sold. For sizes, frames and how fitting runs, our roof lanterns page covers the rest.
Settle these before a lantern goes on order
- Is the property a house, or a flat or maisonette?
- How tall will the finished lantern stand over the roof, kerb and all?
- Does an Article 4 direction or planning condition cover the house?
- Is the house listed, so that listed building consent is needed?
- Have the deeds or lease been read, and the neighbour consulted?
Planning queries about lanterns
Do I have to tell the council about a lantern that is permitted development?
Not through a planning application, if it falls within Class C. The work is still notified to Building Control, because a new roof opening is building work. If you would like written confirmation that a lantern is permitted, your council's planning team can explain how to obtain it.
I live in a conservation area: is a lantern ruled out?
No. On a house, a conservation area by itself does not remove Class C for a rooflight, so the same 150mm and highest-point limits apply. An Article 4 direction covering the area would change that, so ask the council whether one applies to your street.
Can the lantern be made lower to avoid an application?
Sometimes the design can come down with a shallower pitch or a narrower lantern, but the kerb still needs the height the manufacturer sets. If the result no longer suits the room, a flat rooflight may be the better route; our lantern or flat rooflight answer compares them.
Who makes the planning application for a flat?
The application is made to your council by you or by someone acting for you, with drawings of the roof and the lantern. Nothing is ordered from the factory until permission is granted, so the lantern on the quote is the one the council has approved.