Usually, you don’t need planning permission to install Starlink. Starlink counts as an antenna under permitted development rules, so on most houses you can fit one without applying. You do need permission if the property is listed, if the dish would be visible from a road in a conservation area, or if it would be the third antenna on the building.
That last one catches the most people.
The short version
| Your situation | What you need |
| Ordinary house, not listed, not in a conservation area | No permission needed within the size limits below |
| Conservation area, World Heritage Site, National Park or AONB | Permitted, but not on any chimney, wall or roof slope facing onto and visible from a road |
| Listed building, any grade | Listed building consent, including for the cable entry through the fabric |
| Flat or maisonette | Limits apply to the whole building, not your flat. Check your lease as well |
| You already have a Sky dish and a TV aerial | You’re at the two-antenna limit. Starlink makes three, which needs permission |
We don’t sell Starlink hardware or subscriptions, only install them, so we’ve no reason to talk you into a system your property can’t take.
The rules around installing Starlink
Starlink falls under Schedule 2, Part 1, Class H of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015, the same class that covers satellite dishes and TV aerials. It’s a microwave antenna as far as the planning system is concerned, however different it looks.
For a house up to 15 metres high in a designated area, the Planning Portal sets out the limits. No permission is needed provided:
- there are no more than two antennas on the property in total
- a single antenna is no more than 100cm in any linear dimension
- where there are two, one is up to 100cm and the other no more than 60cm
- each has a cubic capacity of no more than 35 litres
- an antenna on a chimney stack is no more than 60cm in any linear dimension
- a roof-mounted antenna only projects above the roof where there’s a chimney stack, and then by no more than 60cm above the lower of the roof ridge or the top of the stack
- it isn’t on a chimney, wall or roof slope which faces onto, and is visible from, a road
Is a Starlink dish within the size limits?
The current Starlink Standard measures 594mm by 383mm, comfortably inside the 100cm limit for a single antenna. On a wall or a rear roof slope it’s straightforward. Cubic capacity is roughly 9 litres, so the 35 litre limit is never the issue.
On a chimney it may not be. Chimney-mounted antennas are capped at 60cm in any linear dimension, and a linear dimension is measured in a straight line from one edge to the opposite edge. On a rectangle the longest such line is the diagonal, and the diagonal of a Starlink Standard comes out at about 71cm.
Read strictly, that puts a chimney-mounted Starlink outside permitted development in a conservation area. We haven’t seen the point tested locally and would be glad to be corrected, but it isn’t something to find out afterwards. If a chimney is the only viable position, ask the council first.
Why conservation areas are harder for Starlink than for a Sky dish
Starlink needs a clear view of the northern sky. Roughly a 100 degree field of view with clearance to the north for users in the UK and Europe, because the satellites are in low orbit and constantly moving rather than sitting on one fixed bearing. Obstructions within about 30 metres are the ones that hurt.
Conservation area rules restrict the elevation that faces onto and is visible from a road.
So it comes down to which side of the street you’re on. A house on the north side has its northern sky over the street, and the one direction the dish needs is the one direction the planning system protects. A house on the south side has it over the back garden, out of public view, and the job becomes simple.
Where the north is genuinely blocked, the options are a rear-garden pole mount with a longer cable run, a side elevation if the arc is wide enough, or a position set back from the ridge so the panel isn’t visible from pavement level. Which of those works is a survey question rather than a rules question.
Installing Starlink on listed buildings
A different regime, and a stricter one. Works affecting the character or appearance of a listed building need listed building consent, and carrying them out without it is a criminal offence under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. It follows the property, so it surfaces in searches when the house is sold.
Two things people miss:
The cable entry needs consent as much as the dish does. Drilling through ashlar to run a PoE cable is an alteration to the fabric, and on a Grade I or II* building it’s the part a conservation officer will care about most.
Setting counts. A dish on an unlisted building can require consent if it affects the setting of a listed one next door.
Should you install it yourself?
Starlink is designed for self-installation and for plenty of people that’s the right answer. A bungalow with an open garden, a low pole mount, a short cable run, no listed status: buy the kit, use the app, done in an afternoon. We’d tell you the same.
It stops being the right answer when any of these apply:
The dish needs to go high. A three-storey Georgian terrace is not a ladder job.
The property is listed or in a conservation area. The consequences of guessing wrong are legal rather than technical.
The obvious position is obstructed. Finding the compromise between the arc Starlink wants and the position the building allows takes measurement.
The cable has to cross something difficult. Bath stone, a listed elevation, a flat roof, a party wall. The panel is light, but it’s exposed and it catches wind, so the mount and the sealed cable entry are what determine whether the installation is still working in three years.
Before you decide either way, run the obstruction check in the Starlink app from the position you’re considering. It’s free, it takes minutes, and it will tell you more about whether your property suits Starlink than any article will.
What we see go wrong
We’re called out to realign or reinstall systems regularly, and our engineers spot poorly mounted Starlink terminals around Bath without anyone having asked us to look.
The order to do this in
- Check whether the building is listed, on the National Heritage List.
- Check whether it’s in a conservation area, using the B&NES mapping.
- Count the antennas already on the property. Two is the limit.
- Run the obstruction check in the Starlink app from the positions available to you.
- If the only clear northern view is over a road-facing elevation, talk to the council before ordering anything.
- Decide honestly whether the mounting position is one you want to be working at.
We install Starlink across Bath and the surrounding area
You buy the hardware and the subscription from Starlink. We survey the property, work out where the terminal can legally and practically go, mount it properly and get the cable in without damaging anything. We also fix installations that have gone wrong, whoever fitted them.
Call 01225 331 441 or see our connected home and business page.
