Natural Slate in Conservation Areas and Listed Homes

Like-for-like means a new covering that matches the old in material, size, colour, laying pattern and detail at the ridge, verge and eaves. A roof of natural slate in diminishing courses, where the slates get smaller towards the top, is re-laid in natural slate in diminishing courses. A roof with a lead-lined valley keeps a lead-lined valley. The test is whether someone who knew the house before and after could tell that anything was done.

The law has a hook for this. Under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (section 55(2)(a)), building work counts as development only if it changes how the building looks from outside in a way that matters. A like-for-like re-cover falls on the other side of that line, which is why so many slate repairs need no application.

Does matching mean using the old slates again?

Where sound slates can be reused, they go back on, and that is the surest route to a roof that looks the same. Where new slates are needed, they are chosen for size, thickness and colour to sit with the old ones. Our answer on matching replacement slates explains how that works in practice.

It is worth writing down what the existing roof has before work starts: slate size, courses, ridge type, valley detail. A short note with photographs becomes the reference for the job and, if anyone ever asks, evidence that the finished roof matched what stood there before. We take those pictures at the survey, taking them from ground level and again up on the slopes, and send them to you.

Planning permission is not needed for everything done to a house. Permitted development, the set of works the government allows without a planning application, is written into the General Permitted Development Order. Part 1 of the Order deals with houses, and its Class C picks up roof changes, re-covering included, so fresh slates on a house are normally within permitted development.

Class C comes with limits. The alteration must not stand more than 0.15 metres proud of the original roof slope, and a roof window placed in a side slope must be obscure-glazed. Class C has no exclusion for conservation areas, so a like-for-like re-slate there normally stays within it.

Do flats and protected areas follow the same rules?

Flats do not. The Order does not treat a block of flats, or a single flat inside one, as a dwellinghouse, so Part 1 offers no help there. Work on a block of flats needs a separate check with the council.

In a conservation area, the change to know about is dormers. Roofers get asked about this a lot, because a dormer is the usual way a slate loft is made into a room. A permitted-development dormer is not allowed on what the Order calls article 2(3) land, which takes in conservation areas, AONBs and National Parks. The Quantock, Blackdown and Mendip Hills are now called National Landscapes, and the same dormer rule applies there. So re-slating is one thing, and adding a dormer to a slate slope is another, and calls for a planning application.

A listed house is not frozen in time. It keeps its Class B and Class C permitted development rights, because neither class excludes listed buildings. What it also needs is listed building consent for works that change its character. Section 7 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 makes it an offence to alter a listed building in a way that would alter that character unless the works are authorised. Planning permission and listed building consent are separate, so a listed owner may need both.

For a slate roof, the question is how far the work alters what is special about the house. Putting back the same slates in the same pattern may be treated one way, and a different material, a different slate size or a new ridge detail may be treated another. That decision belongs to the conservation officer at Somerset Council, not to the roofer, and it is best settled before anything is ordered.

Can I repair a listed slate roof without asking?

Whether a particular repair changes the character of the building is a judgement for the conservation officer, so a short email with photographs is the safe first step. Replacing the odd cracked slate with a matching one is a very different request from re-covering a whole slope in a new material.

A listed church or chapel follows a route of its own, since a Church of England building in current use needs a faculty, so ask before assuming. Doing listed work without consent is a criminal offence, so ask before the scaffold goes up.

Somerset Council explains that an Article 4 direction removes permitted development rights for a defined place, which can mean a planning application is needed for work you would normally do without one. The council acting as planning authority makes the order, and it can apply to part of a street, a single building, or a whole village.

The council's published list includes Wellington, and Staplegrove Road on the Taunton side, along with a string of villages such as Milverton, Halse and Kingston St Mary. Those entries are on the list, and what each direction removes is for the council to say. The notices sit with its planning team, who can confirm them.

Should I check for an Article 4 direction before a re-slate?

Yes, and it costs nothing to ask. Many owners assume that a conservation area and an Article 4 direction are the same thing. They are not. A conservation area is a designation of special character. A direction is a separate legal notice that removes particular rights, and it may sit inside a conservation area, cover a small site, or stand alone.

When you ask, give the full address and say that you plan to re-cover the roof in the existing material. Ask whether a direction applies and, if so, what it says about roof covering. Keep the reply with your papers, because a later buyer's solicitor may ask for it.

Where a direction does apply, you can still re-slate. It changes the route, not the wish to keep the roof as it is.

Somerset Council's table covering the former Taunton district gives these conservation areas in the town, with dates as published:

• Castle Green and Bath Place, designated 15 January 1975 and revised 26 April 2007.
• Park Street and Wellington Road, designated 15 January 1975 and revised 12 November 1998.
• St Mary and St James, designated 15 January 1975 and revised 26 April 2007.
• Staplegrove Road, designated 15 January 1975 and revised 12 November 1998.
• Haines Hill and Trull Road, designated 14 March 2023.

Two more, the Mount Street area with Vivary Park and the town of Wellington, are designated as well. Other conservation areas nearby include Bishops Lydeard, North Curry, Milverton, Wiveliscombe, Kingston St Mary and West Monkton.

How would I know if my lane is covered?

Ask Somerset Council's planning team, which holds the maps. Boundaries can follow back fences and field edges, and a house on one side of a lane may be inside while its neighbour is outside. A postcode or a street name will not settle it. Our page on conservation areas in Taunton covers the wider picture.

If your house is inside one, that is a reason to keep the covering as it is, and a reason to tell the council about any change before it happens. The survey photographs show exactly what the existing roof is made of, which makes that conversation short. They also record the condition of the ridge, the valleys and the lead, so the officer can see what is staying and what is being renewed.

Most of our work sits inside Somerset Council's planning area, but not all of it. Inside Exmoor National Park, the Park's own authority, not Somerset Council, takes planning decisions within the boundary (under section 4A of the 1990 planning legislation). Planning permission and listed building consent for a house within the Park therefore go to Exmoor National Park Authority. If your slate roof is on the Exmoor side of the line, that is where to ask.

The Quantock Hills, the Blackdown Hills and the Mendip Hills are National Landscapes. National Landscape is the newer working name for an AONB, and the change in November 2023 was not statutory, so the older term still appears in the Order. The Quantock Hills designation as an AONB dates from 1956. For roof work the effect is the one noted earlier: no permitted-development dormers, but Class C itself is not excluded.

Who should I ask first?

Start with the planning team for your address, which is Somerset Council for most of Taunton and the villages around it, and Exmoor National Park Authority inside the Park. For a question about Building Regulations, such as the weight of a new covering, ask your building control body. Somerset Building Control is on 0300 303 7790.

Bring photographs of the existing roof, the slate type, and a note of what you plan to do, along with the address exactly as the council records it. Our survey gives you all three, and the written price names the material going back on, so the paperwork and the job agree.