A mobile catering trailer on private land beside a road

Parking a catering trailer in a layby or a field gateway and trading from it is almost always a material change of use of the land, which means planning permission unless a temporary use right covers it. The right people reach for is Part 4 Class B of the General Permitted Development Order, which allows the temporary use of land for any purpose for up to 28 days in a calendar year. Twenty-eight days is 28 days in total, across all temporary uses of that land, not 28 days per activity.

Trade five days a week and you are through the allowance in six weeks. After that you are operating unlawfully, whatever the trailer's wheels suggest.

Whether siting a trailer is a material change of use

Section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 defines development as including a material change in the use of land. The question is not whether an object has been placed on the land; it is whether the character of the use has changed.

A trailer that arrives at seven, trades all day and leaves at six, every day, changes the character of the land from whatever it was to a hot food outlet. The fact that nothing is bolted down does not help. Regularity, the presence of customers, signage, a servery hatch facing the road and a queue on the verge are all evidence of a use.

Contrast that with genuine occasional trading: a trailer at a monthly farmers' market, or at four events a year. That is temporary use, and Part 4 Class B is designed for it.

Where the trailer is left in position overnight and permanently, a second question arrives: whether the trailer has itself become a building. A substantial unit sitting on blocks with a decked serving area and a connected waste tank is well on the way to being a structure, which makes the siting operational development as well as a change of use.

Temporary use rights and the day count

Class B permits the use of land for any purpose for not more than 28 days in total in any calendar year, together with moveable structures for the purposes of that use. Certain uses, including the holding of a market, are limited to 14 days.

Four limits catch catering operators.

The allowance is per calendar year and resets on 1 January, which is why some operators trade hard in December and stop. It is cumulative across uses, so if the field also hosts a car boot sale, those days come off the same total. It does not apply where the land is a building or within the curtilage of a building, so a pub car park or a retail forecourt cannot rely on Class B. And it does not override a condition on an existing permission that restricts the use of the land.

Councils count. A complaint from a nearby takeaway usually arrives with dates attached, and the burden of showing the use is within the allowance falls on the operator. Keep a trading diary.

Highway safety, visibility and parking on the verge

This is the issue that refuses applications, not odour and not litter.

The highway authority will look at where customers stop, how they turn in and out, and what happens when the layby fills. A pitch that encourages parking on a verge, reversing onto a classified road, or pedestrians crossing a 60 mph carriageway is objectionable almost regardless of its merits. On the strategic road network, National Highways is a statutory consultee and takes a restrictive view of any new access or intensification.

What helps a case:

• An existing lawful access of adequate width with visibility splays measured to the current standard for the road's speed
• Off-carriageway parking for the realistic peak number of customers, shown to scale with turning space so vehicles leave in forward gear
• A pedestrian route from the parking to the servery that does not cross the vehicle access
• No queuing position that places people between the trailer and moving traffic
• Confirmation that the access is not on a trunk road junction protection length

Measure the splays rather than asserting them. An officer with a plan showing a 2.4 by 215 metre splay across a hedge you do not own will refuse the application on deliverability alone.

Litter, waste and the condition that follows

Hot food sold to passing motorists generates litter within a few hundred metres, and councils know the pattern.

Expect a condition requiring bins on site, a litter picking regime within a stated radius, and a trade waste contract. Under sections 93 and 94 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 a council can serve a street litter control notice on the occupier of premises requiring them to provide bins and clear litter, and a catering unit is squarely within the intended scope.

Waste water is the part operators forget. A servery producing washing-up water and food waste needs a sealed tank and a documented disposal route, because discharge to a ditch or a soakaway is an offence under environmental permitting controls. Say in the application where the grey water goes and who takes it.

Food business registration with the council is separate again, and it has to be done at least 28 days before trading starts.

Odour and the nearest residential receptor

Frying, grilling and charcoal cooking produce odour that carries further than people expect, and the assessment is about the nearest sensitive receptor rather than about the equipment.

Where the nearest dwelling is 20 metres away with a prevailing wind towards it, expect environmental health to ask for an extraction and filtration specification and, on a contested site, an Odour Assessment. Where the nearest dwelling is 300 metres upwind across open fields, odour is usually dealt with by a short paragraph.

A trailer's extraction is more limited than a fixed kitchen's, which cuts both ways. There is less scope to fit carbon filtration and a tall discharge stack, and there is also less cooking volume. A Ventilation and Extraction Statement setting out the cooking types, the extraction rate, the filtration stages and the discharge height and direction answers most queries, and the same approach applies to fixed premises, as in the piece on converting a shop into another commercial use.

Charcoal and solid fuel cooking in a smoke control area carries its own restrictions under the Clean Air Act 1993, so check whether the site falls in one.

Hours of trading and overnight storage

Hours are the most negotiable part of a permission and the part most worth getting right first time.

A permission limited to 07:00 to 15:00 suits a breakfast and lunch trade near an industrial estate. Evening trading near housing is where objections concentrate, because it brings car doors, voices and headlights into a quiet period. Ask for the hours the business actually needs and justify them with the customer profile, rather than asking for 06:00 to 23:00 and inviting a refusal.

Overnight storage of the trailer on site strengthens the argument that the use is permanent, which helps if you want a permanent permission and hurts if you are relying on temporary use rights. Decide which position you are taking and be consistent.

Separate street trading consent and licensing

Planning permission is one of three or four consents, and the others are often harder to get.

Street trading consent under Schedule 4 to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 applies where the council has designated the street as a consent street or a licence street, and "street" is defined broadly enough to catch land to which the public have access. London boroughs operate their own regime. Consents are typically annual, personal to the trader and refusable without the appeal rights a planning decision carries.

Add food business registration, a food hygiene rating inspection, gas safety certification for LPG appliances, and in some areas a licence for late night refreshment under the Licensing Act 2003 where hot food is sold between 23:00 and 05:00.

Sort the street trading position before applying for planning permission. There is little point in a permission for a pitch the licensing team will not consent.

Preparing an application for a permanent pitch

For a permanent or seasonal pitch, the submission is small but every document has to do work.

1. Location plan at 1:1250 and a site plan at 1:200 showing the trailer, parking, turning, bins, the access and the visibility splays
2. A Planning Statement covering the use, the hours sought, highway safety, odour, litter and waste water, with the nearest residential receptor distances stated
3. An extraction and odour note, scaled to the sensitivity of the surroundings
4. A litter management plan with the radius and frequency you are willing to accept as a condition
5. Photographs of the access from both approach directions at driver eye height

Consider applying for a temporary permission of two or three years first. It gives the council a way to say yes, and a clean trading record is the strongest evidence at renewal.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports a roadside pitch is likely to need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.