There are effectively two Andovers, and they need completely different advice. There's the Georgian and Victorian town centre — a conservation area since 1969, reviewed as recently as 2021. And there are the new estates: Augusta Park at around 2,500 homes, Picket Twenty at 1,200, Picket Piece at roughly 1,000. Then, north of the town, the North Wessex Downs and the oil-heated villages.
Test Valley's own borough profile records Augusta Park at around 2,500 dwellings north-east of the town, Picket Twenty at 1,200 and Picket Piece at approximately 1,000. That is a lot of modern housing in one place.
For renewables this is the easy end of the market. Recent construction means well-insulated fabric, cavity or better walls, and heating pipework laid to current conventions — the conditions a heat pump needs to run efficiently at a low flow temperature. Roofs tend to be simple, unshaded and consistently oriented, which is exactly what solar likes.
Nearly all of it sits outside any conservation area, so roof solar is normally permitted development with no planning application at all.
A south-facing Andover roof at around 35° generates roughly 1,037 kWh per year for every kWp installed — about 4,146 kWh from a 4 kWp array. Effectively level with Winchester, and around 12% behind Chichester on the coast.
On the new estates that figure is usually achievable in full: simple roof planes, no mature trees yet, and orientations set by the developer rather than by three hundred years of street layout.
| Town | kWh per kWp / year |
|---|---|
| Chichester | 1,175 |
| Portsmouth | 1,124 |
| Fareham | 1,117 |
| Bournemouth | 1,100 |
| Poole | 1,097 |
| Southampton | 1,080 |
| Salisbury | 1,046 |
| Winchester | 1,038 |
| Andover | 1,037 |
| Basingstoke | 1,031 |
| Guildford | 1,023 |
Source: European Commission PVGIS (v5.2), south-facing, 35° pitch, 14% system losses. Your own figure will differ with shading, pitch, orientation and roof area — the survey gives you a property-specific number, not this one.
Test Valley's adopted local plan states that the North Wessex Downs National Landscape "covers much of the Borough north of Andover". This is chalk downland country — scattered villages, long lanes, and a great many homes the gas main never reached.
A point worth being clear about: National Landscape designation does not by itself remove permitted development rights for roof-mounted solar. What restricts you is conservation area status, a listing or a scheduled monument. Plenty of village homeowners assume they can't, and are wrong.
Note also that part of Test Valley Borough — at its far southern end, not near Andover — lies inside the New Forest National Park, where the National Park Authority is the planning authority instead of the council.
Andover is in SSEN's SEPD area. Which process applies depends on system size, not location.
Andover town, Augusta Park, Picket Twenty, Picket Piece, Abbotts Ann, the Clatfords, Amport, Monxton, Thruxton and the Test Valley villages. Every installation is MCS accredited.
Aiko ABC panels. On the new estates the design work is usually simple and the full yield is achievable. In the old town it is the opposite — small slopes, street elevations that are off limits, and a real premium on getting output from limited area.
Solar panels →Grant, Midea and Daikin. Modern estate housing is close to ideal for a heat pump. Village properties on oil or LPG have the most to gain financially, at up to £9,000 of grant — but need a proper heat loss survey and often emitter changes first.
Heat pumps →Tesla Powerwall 3, Fox ESS and SigenEnergy. On a rural supply a battery does double duty — shifting cheap overnight rate into the peak, and taking the edge off a network that is less firm than an urban one.
Battery storage →They are the easiest properties we work on. Test Valley's borough profile records Augusta Park at around 2,500 dwellings, Picket Twenty at 1,200 and Picket Piece at approximately 1,000. Recent construction means well-insulated fabric, cavity or better walls and heating pipework laid to current conventions, which is what a heat pump needs to run efficiently at a low flow temperature. Roofs tend to be simple, unshaded and consistently oriented. Nearly all of it sits outside any conservation area, so roof solar is normally permitted development with no application at all.
Possibly. The Andover conservation area was designated in 1969, extended in 1984 and reviewed in 2021, and covers a predominantly 18th and 19th century centre of Georgian, Regency and Victorian terraces on medieval plot patterns. Inside it, panels on a wall or roof slope forming the principal elevation and fronting a highway need planning permission from Test Valley Borough Council. Rear slopes not facing a highway are usually still permitted development. There are 36 conservation areas across the borough, so many of the surrounding villages are designated too.
About 1,037 kWh per year for every kWp installed, on a south-facing roof pitched at around 35 degrees, according to the European Commission's PVGIS dataset — roughly 4,146 kWh from a 4 kWp array. That is effectively level with Winchester and around 12% behind Chichester on the coast. On the new estates the full figure is usually achievable, because the roof planes are simple, there are no mature trees yet, and orientation was set by the developer.
Almost certainly. Test Valley's adopted local plan states the North Wessex Downs National Landscape covers much of the borough north of Andover, but National Landscape designation does not by itself remove permitted development rights for roof-mounted solar. What restricts you is conservation area status, a listed building or a scheduled monument. A lot of village homeowners assume they are not allowed, and are simply wrong. Note separately that part of Test Valley, at its far southern end rather than near Andover, lies inside the New Forest National Park, where the National Park Authority is the planning authority instead of the council.
If your home is off the gas grid and heated by oil or LPG, yes. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £7,500 towards an air source heat pump with an extra £1,500 for off-grid homes replacing oil or LPG — up to £9,000, available until March 2027. The downland villages north of Andover are where off-grid heating is concentrated. As an MCS certified installer we submit the voucher application ourselves and deduct the grant from your invoice. Older flint, brick and cob cottages lose heat faster than the estates in town and often need larger emitters, so we survey properly and price that in rather than discovering it later.
Andover is in SSEN's SEPD area. Up to 3.68 kW per phase the G98 process applies with no wait — we install, commission and notify SSEN within 28 days. Above that a G99 application must be approved first, with a network study and a connection quote. One rule bites particularly hard on the new estates: SSEN requires prior approval where the same installer has connected generation at another property in the same postcode area within the previous 28 days, and on Augusta Park or Picket Twenty a single postcode covers a run of near-identical houses whose owners talk to each other.
Required to claim the BUS grant and to register for the Smart Export Guarantee. We are also RECC members.
Andover and the Test Valley are within our normal working area, not an outer edge.
Family-run, with directly employed engineers. The people who survey your property are the people who install.
Survey to sign-off in one price, including scaffolding and the grid application. No hidden extras.
Whether you are on a new estate or in the old town, we will tell you which rules apply to your property, what your roof will generate, and what the grant is worth.
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