The 2020 Use Classes Order amendment and Class E

The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020 came into force on 1 September 2020 and did the largest single restructuring of the use classes order 2020 class E system since 1987. Classes A1, A2, A3, B1, D1 and D2 were revoked. In their place came Class E for commercial, business and service uses, Class F1 for learning and non-residential institutions, and Class F2 for local community uses. Pubs, takeaways, cinemas and live music venues were pushed out of the classes altogether and became sui generis.

Six years on, the practical consequences are still turning up in condition disputes and in arguments about what a building is lawfully used for.

What the amendment actually did

The Use Classes Order 1987 was amended rather than replaced, so the 1987 Order remains the operative instrument and the 2020 Regulations changed its Schedule.

Class E covers seven lettered groups.

• E(a), retail sale of goods other than hot food.
• E(b), sale of food and drink mostly consumed on the premises.
• E(c), financial services, professional services other than health or medical, and other services appropriate in a commercial, business or service locality.
• E(d), indoor sport, recreation or fitness not involving motorised vehicles or firearms.
• E(e), provision of medical or health services other than where attached to the practitioner's residence.
• E(f), creche, day nursery or day centre.
• E(g), offices, research and development, and any industrial process, each qualified by being capable of being carried out in a residential area without detriment to amenity.

That last qualification on E(g) is doing real work. A light industrial process that would be noticeable in a residential street is not in Class E at all, and the argument about where the line falls is the same argument that used to be had about B1(c) and B2.

Class F1 gathers education, art display, museums, public libraries and reading rooms, public halls and exhibition halls, public worship and religious instruction, and law courts.

Class F2 covers local community uses: a shop no larger than 280 m2 selling mostly essential goods including food where there is no other such facility within 1,000 metres, halls or meeting places for the principal use of the local community, outdoor sport or recreation areas, and swimming pools and skating rinks.

Which uses moved out of the classes

The sui generis list grew, and this is where most of the practical difficulty sits. Public houses and drinking establishments, drinking establishments with expanded food provision, hot food takeaways, cinemas, concert halls, bingo halls, dance halls and live music venues all sit outside the classes.

The effect is that any change involving one of them is development requiring permission, in both directions. A shop cannot become a takeaway without an application. A pub cannot become a shop without one either, whatever the commercial logic. That is deliberate: the uses were taken out of the classes precisely so that their loss could be controlled locally.

For a takeaway or a restaurant the application will normally need extraction and odour evidence, which is what a Ventilation and Extraction Statement covers, and plant noise evidence through a Noise Impact Assessment.

Movement within Class E and what it allows

Section 55(2)(f) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides that a change of use within the same class is not development. So a building lawfully in Class E can move between the E sub-classes without permission: a shop to an office, an office to a gym, a gym to a nursery, a nursery to a clinic.

Three qualifications matter.

The flexibility is only as wide as the lawful use. If the building's lawful use is a shop and a condition ties it to retail, the condition governs.

The flexibility does not carry building regulations, licensing, environmental health or lease consents with it. A gym in a former shop still needs to satisfy the fire and means of escape requirements, and a nursery still needs registration.

And a change within Class E can still amount to development if it involves building works. Fitting out a shop as a clinic with new plant on the roof is operational development regardless of the use class position.

Conditions imposed before September 2020

This is the question that generates the most correspondence. A permission granted in 2015 with a condition restricting use to Class A1 did not silently become a condition restricting use to Class E.

The 2020 Regulations included saving provisions so that references in earlier permissions and conditions to the revoked classes continue to be read by reference to those classes as they stood. Authorities and inspectors have generally applied it that way, which means a pre-2020 Class A1 condition still limits the premises to what A1 covered, and the wider Class E flexibility does not apply.

Read the condition wording closely, because drafting varies. A condition that ties use to Class A1 of the Schedule to the 1987 Order as at the date of the permission is tight. A condition that says the premises shall be used as a shop and for no other purpose may be read differently. Where the answer is worth money, a certificate of lawfulness of proposed use under section 192 is the way to settle it rather than an exchange of emails.

Removing such a condition means an application under section 73, and the authority will look at the planning merits of the unrestricted use.

Class MA and what followed

The restructuring made a second reform possible. From 1 August 2021, Class MA of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 allowed change of use from Class E to dwellinghouses in Class C3 through prior approval, replacing the narrower office-to-residential route that preceded it.

Class MA has its own conditions, including vacancy and continuous use requirements and a natural light test, and it has been amended since introduction. That is a separate subject, and the current text is the only safe source.

The broader point is that Class E made a very wide range of commercial premises eligible for residential conversion through prior approval in one step. Authorities that wanted to protect town centre floorspace responded with Article 4 directions, which remove the permitted development right in a defined area, and those directions are the first thing to check on any Class E building.

Establishing lawful use after the change

Where a building has changed hands or changed occupier since 2020, the lawful use may not be obvious from the planning history, because a change within Class E leaves no paper trail.

Evidence that helps: business rates descriptions and their dates, leases and licences, trading records, dated photographs and signage, and statutory declarations from occupiers. Where a decision depends on it, apply for a certificate of lawfulness of existing use or development under section 191.

Buyers and lenders ask about this more than they used to, because the lawful use determines what the building can be used for next and whether a Class MA route is open. A seller who can produce a section 191 certificate is selling a known quantity. One who cannot is asking the buyer to take the risk on the planning history.

The planning law timeline is the place to follow later changes to the classes, and the 2026 Framework restructure covers the national policy context that sits above them.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports a change of use application would need, or browse the full report index. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance rather than legal advice, so check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.