Solar Canopy for Council Car Parks

Why council car parks suit solar canopies

The government's 2025 call for evidence on solar car parks counted around 20,000 council-run car parking sites in Great Britain, alongside an estimated 40,000–50,000 private sites. A surface car park is land a council already owns and maintains; a canopy adds generation above it without taking up another use, and it gives a natural home to public EV chargers.

Those same features create the council-specific questions this page covers: pay-and-display income that falls while bays are out of use, chargers that will be open to the public and so fall under the public chargepoint rules, sites next to housing or heritage buildings, and a funding landscape that no longer includes a central grant for English councils.

Funding a council car park canopy in 2026

Start with what has gone. The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme closed to new applications in November 2024, DESNZ describes Phase 4 as the final phase, and DfE's capital guidance records the government's decision, following the 2025 Spending Review, to commit no further investment to PSDS beyond awarded projects. Salix's England programmes are grants, and there is no Salix public-sector loan in England. A funding plan built on "PSDS plus a Salix loan" cannot be delivered.

The costs to model: the government's 80-space example

DESNZ's 2025 call for evidence put rough estimates out for comment using an illustrative 80-space car park, in 2025 prices. They are not quotes — the cost estimate drew on projections for solar farms and small PV systems in 2030 — but they show which lines matter to a council:

The foregone revenue assumes the entire car park closes for three and a half months. Source: DESNZ, Solar on car parks and electric vehicle charging, call for evidence (May 2025), Annex C.

For a pay-and-display car park the last line can be the largest, which is why phasing matters more to a council than to most owners: building a section at a time keeps the income coming. The government proposed in that call for evidence to make canopies compulsory on new outdoor car parks, and on 21 May 2026 said the policy will not be taken any further at this point — the full story is in our article on whether car park solar canopies will be mandatory.

Public EV chargers under the canopy

Chargers in a council car park are usually open to the public, and that brings the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 into play: contactless payment on new public chargepoints of 8 kW and above (unless charging is free), the maximum price shown in pence per kWh, open data and a free 24/7 staffed helpline, and 99% average reliability across an operator's rapid charging network, with penalties of up to £10,000 per chargepoint. Electricity sold through public chargepoints is standard-rated for VAT.

On the grid side, since 1 April 2023 a new or increased connection pays for its own sole-use assets rather than wider reinforcement, unless costs pass the £1,720-per-kVA high-cost cap; standing charges for EV charging sites are now based on installed capacity and have risen. DESNZ notes that on-site generation could reduce the size of a car park's connection request, depending on charger and solar capacity, when demand peaks and any battery storage. Charger costs and the grant maths are set out in our breakdown of what EV chargers under a canopy cost.

Planning: town centres, housing and heritage

A council car park is non-domestic off-street parking, so in England a canopy can use Class OA permitted development after a prior approval application on siting, design, external appearance and glare. The tests that catch town centre sites:

• → Housing: no part of the canopy may be inside or within 10 metres of the curtilage of a house or block of flats.
• → Heritage: the right does not apply within the curtilage of a listed building or on a scheduled monument. Conservation areas are not excluded, but the prior approval application also considers the canopy's appearance there.
• → Height: no part may be more than 4 metres above ground level.
• → Multi-storey car parks: the government described Class OA as a right for ground-level car parks; confirm how an upper deck would be treated before relying on it.

Design choices that reduce visual impact — darker steel finishes, low-profile panels and careful siting away from key views — are the kind of evidence a prior approval application on conservation area land needs. In Scotland, Class 9M excludes conservation areas altogether and adds a 5-metre road setback. The full rules are in our guide to planning permission for car park canopies.

Keeping the car park open during construction

Because a council car park is a public asset with an income, the construction plan is part of the business case:

• ✓ Build a section or row at a time rather than closing the whole car park
• ✓ Avoid market days, events and seasonal peaks in the programme
• ✓ Agree temporary traffic and pedestrian management with the council's highways and parking teams before work starts
• ✓ Confirm who holds the CDM duties and signs off the structure
• ✓ Run the grid application alongside prior approval — a network operator has up to three months to make an offer once it has a complete application