Lighting – Building Use Classes

All buildings in England are defined within one of the ‘Use Classes’ given in the Town and County Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987. The UK Government has implemented amended regulations, which came into force on the 1^st of September 2020, to the Use Classes Order (UCO) and the Permitted Development Rights (PDR), to provide quicker and more cost effective way, with greater flexibility, for changes in the use of commercial buildings, without the need or requirement to engage in obtaining planning approval.

Permitted Development Rights (PDRs) are rights to make certain changes to a building without the need to apply for planning permission and derive from general planning permission granted by Parliament, rather than from permission granted by the Local Planning Authority (LPA), relevant to the location of the building, however, before some PDRs can be used, the developer must first obtain “prior approval” in relation to specified aspects of the development from the Local Planning Authority, where some PDRs cover building operations, such as home extensions, whereas others cover change of use of buildings.

The rules relating to when a change of use for a building does and does not require planning permission are set out in UKSI 1987 No. 764, The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987, where it puts uses of land and buildings into various categories known as “use classes”. The categories give an indication of the types of use which may fall within each of the use classes and is only a general guide as it is for the Local Planning Authority to determine, in the first instance and depending on the individual circumstances of each case, to which class a particular use falls into. The UKSI 1987 No. 764, The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 was amended by the UKSI 2010 No. 653, The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Order 2010 and the UKSI 2015 No. 596, The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015.

A change of use of land or buildings will require planning permission if it constitutes a “material change of use” but there is no statutory definition of material change of use and whether a material change of use has taken place is a matter of fact and degree that will be determined on the individual merits of a case. In the first instance this will be determined by the relevant Local Planning Authority. Until the 1^st of September 2020, there were four main categories of defined Building Classes, where Class A was for shops and other retail premises such as restaurants and bank branches, Class B was for offices, workshops, factories and warehouses, Class C was for residential uses and Class D was for non-residential institutions, assembly and leisure uses. Not every use of building is put into a use class under legislation, and where those that are not, are termed as being “sui generis”, where a building or business is, or to be sui generis, then there will normally need to be a planning application to change the use under the procedures set out in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

From the 1^st of September 2020, The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020 came into force, with their territorial extent being England and Wales, however, their territorial application is England, where parts of these regulations were either revoked or amended whilst they also created new use classes.

Use Classes A (A1, A2, A3, A4, A5) and Classes D (D1, D2) have been fully revoked from the Use Classes Regulations in their entirety and Class B has been amended, revoking part of the class (B1a, B1b, B1c) and retaining part of the class (B2, B8) within the new Regulations.

Three new classes have been added to the Regulations, that of a broad Class E for commercial, business and services, Class F.1 for learning and non-residential institutions, and Class F.2 for local community, so as to remove the need to obtain planning permission for some changes between various non-residential uses required under the previous use classes order. Shops fall into Class E, that of commercial, business and services or into Class F2 for local community, depending upon their size, with smaller shops falling into the local community category, which suggested that this recognises the role of small, local shops in meeting day to day shopping needs of the public. These Regulations also moved some uses, including what used to be Class A4 for drinking establishments, Class A5 for hot food takeaways and Class D2 for cinemas, concert, dance and bingo halls, out of those previous use classes, into the “sui generis” category, as this provides some measure of protection against change of use, in that any change of use cannot be done under Permitted Development Rights (PDR) and as such will require planning permission.

The Explanatory Memorandum to these Regulations said that transitional provisions in retaining the effect of the Permitted Development Rights based on use classes in place before these Regulations came into force, would apply until 31^st of July 2021, during which time, a consultation process from 3^rd of December 2020 to 28^th of January 2021  was implemented by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, where some of the points of the consultation included, change of use from the new use class E (commercial, business and service) to C3 residential, an amended extension of schools, colleagues, universities and hospitals, a similar right for prisons and defence sites, faster decisions on applications for planning permission and existing PDRs to be consolidated and simplified.

From implementation of the Regulations the 1^st of August 2021, the detail below provides an overview with regard to the changes and comparisons between old and new use classes, however, as this just offers a simplified, but relevant information, it may not be deemed as being definitive or exhaustive, so should be  used as a guide, but with caution.

Class A – REVOKED – A1 Shops / A2 Financial and professional services / A3 Restaurants and cafés / A4 Drinking establishments / A5 Hot food takeaways

Class B – B1 Business – B1(a) Offices – Other than a use within Class A2 (see above) / B1(b) Research and development of products or processes / B1(c) Industrial processes = B1 now in Class E

B2 – General industrial

B8 – Storage or distribution

Class C – Retained

Class D – REVOKED – D1 Non-residential institutions / D2 Assembly and leisure

NEW – Class E – commercial, business and service

NEW – Class F.1 – learning and non-residential institutions

NEW – Class F.2 – Local community

Sui Generis – As before, but with additions from other revoked classes

In expanding a little on the content above, the table below may offer a more detailed view of the new use classes.