Planning Law Changes - Spring 2005

01 April 2005

The general principle is that a material change of use of property requires planning permission. This is modified by the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 and the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995. The former provides that a change of use for another purpose within the same use class is not development requiring planning permission. The latter grants deemed planning permission for some changes between certain use classes.

The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Order 2005 comes into effect on 21st April. It amends the 1987 Order in three ways:-

1. Two uses are excluded from the use classes which means that, in future, express planning permission for those uses will be needed. They are:-
1.1. Use as a retail warehouse club, being a retail club where goods are sold, or displayed for sale only to persons who are members of that club.
1.2. Use as a night-club.

2. Class A1 (Retail Shops) is altered to include internet café use, where the primary purpose is to provide facilities for public access to the internet.

3. Class A3 (Food and Drink) is replaced by three new classes:-
3.1. Class A3 (Restaurants and Cafes) - use for the sale of food and drink for consumption on the premises.
3.2. Class A4 (Drinking Establishments) - use as a public house, wine bar or other drinking establishment.
3.3. Class A5 (Hot Food Takeaways) - use for the sale of hot food for consumption off the premises.

The consequent amendments to the 1995 Order are:-
1. The three new use classes (A3, A4, and A5) are given permitted development rights to change to class A1 (Retail shops) and class A2 ( Professional Services).

2. The new use classes A4 and A5 are given permitted development rights to change to the new A3 use.

3. Motorcar showrooms will no longer have permitted development rights to change to A1 uses.

It will be appreciated that the thinking behind the changes is to allow local planning authorities a greater degree of control over the number of night-clubs, drinking establishments and hot food takeaways. Allowing the last two uses permitted development rights to change to restaurants or cafes suggests the latter are regarded as being less politically problematical.

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