Local Shutter InstallersPlanning · Ruling
Article 4 directions
Updated
An Article 4 direction removes permitted development rights that might otherwise have existed. In those streets, even small external changes can need an application.
What is being claimed
The council's map, not a national blog, tells you if your house is in one.
The illustration beside the claim
The worked opening for Article 4 directions is 0.9 m wide by 2.1 m high, 1.89 square metres of glass. This figure puts 520 watts per square metre on the pane and uses a g-value of 0.7, about 688 watts into the room if the curtain is up. An opaque external shutter, taken as stopping 85 percent of that gain while it is fully down, leaves about 103 watts and keeps about 585 watts out. That is a noon figure for comparison. An internal blind does not get the same reduction. For Article 4 directions, use the noon figure to compare two openings on the same house, then let a measured survey replace the figure.
An internal blind does not get that reduction, because the energy has already crossed the glass.
A night cover is not a consent
Winter figure for Article 4 directions: glass at 1.4 W/m2K, 1.89 square metres, a 12 degree inside-outside gap and eight night hours. The bare pane is about 0.25 kWh a night on that crude sum. A closed shutter cutting about 24 percent of the flow leaves 0.19 kWh and saves about 0.06 kWh a night, only while it is down. Open it when you want winter sun.
Paper before manufacture
Stop Article 4 directions if the frame cannot take a guide and the wall beside it is crumbling. A photograph is not a manufacturing size.
Newcastle is only a setting for Article 4 directions. The streets there are not the product.
How to use the figure
The 0.9 by 2.1 metre opening inside Article 4 directions is there so a quote has something to disagree with. If the tape gives a different size, the tape wins.
The example drive is a wired motor, and the illustration is £1,689. A belt, a wired motor and a solar motor can share a curtain and still be different jobs. Compare those lines, not a single bold total.
What the survey still has to write down
For Article 4 directions, ask where the box lands, what colour reference will be ordered, and how the curtain opens when the motor is dead. Those three answers move the job more than a rounded price.
Leave the lantern, the side light and the next elevation off the order unless they are drawn. Article 4 directions covers one kind of opening. The house may have three.
When I would not order yet
Article 4 directions should wait if the opening is an escape door with no way to raise a dead motor, or if the front is the elevation a conservation area was drawn to protect.
A photograph is not a manufacturing size. Two quotes for Article 4 directions only compare when the slat, the box and the drive are the same kind of thing.
Questions worth asking the fitter
Is the price on this page a quote?
No. £1,689 illustrates Article 4 directions for a 0.9 by 2.1 metre opening with a wired motor, at September 2026 rates. Your survey replaces it.
Does the shutter cover every pane?
It covers the opening it is built for. Here that example is 1.89 square metres. A roof lantern, a side light or the next elevation is another line.
What if planning is unclear?
Do not pay the factory for Article 4 directions until a listed building, a conservation front, a flat or a shopfront has a written answer. Ordinary rear walls on houses are sometimes simpler.
What should two quotes share?
The same openings, the same slat type, and the same drive. Article 4 directions uses a wired motor in the example so you can see how much the motor choice moves £1,689.