Agricultural buildings and the absence of a use class

Agriculture is not a use class. It appears nowhere in the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987, which is why a farm building cannot move to another use by relying on the flexibility that shopkeepers and office occupiers enjoy within Class E. Every change from agricultural use to anything else is either development requiring planning permission or a change permitted by a specific class in the General Permitted Development Order, and there is no third option.

That single structural fact explains most of the difficulties rural owners hit when they try to do something new with a barn.

Why agriculture sits outside the Order

The Use Classes Order groups uses so that movement within a group is not development. Uses left out of the Order are sui generis, meaning each is a class of its own, and any change to or from them is a material change of use needing permission.

Agriculture is left out for a different reason. Section 55(2)(e) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 says that the use of land for agriculture or forestry, and the use for those purposes of any building occupied together with land so used, does not involve development at all. The activity is taken outside the planning definition of development rather than placed in a box within it.

The consequence runs one way. Moving into agricultural use generally needs no permission, because it is not development. Moving out of it always does, unless a permitted development class covers the move.

The statutory definition and why it matters

Section 336(1) of the 1990 Act defines agriculture to include horticulture, fruit growing, seed growing, dairy farming, the breeding and keeping of livestock, the use of land as grazing land, meadow land, osier land, market gardens and nursery grounds, and the use of land for woodlands where that use is ancillary to farming the land for other agricultural purposes.

Livestock in that definition means creatures kept for the production of food, wool, skins or fur, or for use in the farming of land. The wording is doing real work. A field of horses grazing is agriculture, because grazing land is named. The same field used for schooling, livery or riding lessons is not, because horses kept for recreation are not kept for any of the purposes listed.

The definition is inclusive rather than exhaustive, so arguments do arise at the edges. But the pattern of the case law is consistent: activities connected with the land and its produce tend to fall inside it, and activities that merely happen on a farm tend to fall outside.

Activities that are not agriculture

Several things that feel agricultural to the person doing them are not agriculture in planning terms:

• Keeping, schooling or liveries of horses, other than grazing
• Kennels, catteries and commercial dog breeding
• Farm shops selling goods bought in rather than produced on the holding
• Processing, packing or bottling produce grown elsewhere
• Storage of goods, machinery or vehicles for third parties, which raises its own use class questions
• Camping, glamping and events, subject to the separate temporary use rights
• Renewable energy generation for export

Each of those is a change of use from agriculture, and each therefore needs either permission or a permitted development class. The intensification point is worth watching too, because doing much more of the same thing can amount to a material change even where the activity is unchanged in kind, and how intensification is assessed decides whether you have a problem.

Moving from agricultural use to anything else

The starting position is that you need planning permission. What varies is whether a permitted development class gets you there first.

The main routes in Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order are Class Q, which allows the change of agricultural buildings to dwellinghouses, Class R, which allows change to a flexible commercial use subject to a floorspace cap, and Class S, which allows change to a state-funded school or registered nursery. Each runs through prior approval rather than a full application, and each has its own conditions and exclusions.

All of them share qualifying tests about the building, the holding and the date the agricultural use began. The floorspace caps and the qualifying criteria have been amended repeatedly, most recently in 2024, so read the consolidated text on legislation.gov.uk rather than a summary. The 2024 changes to Class Q are a good illustration of how much can move in a single amendment order.

Where no class fits, the application is a full change of use, supported by a Planning Statement that deals with the development plan policy on rural diversification, the sustainability of the location and highway access.

Evidence of agricultural use and the dates that matter

Class Q turns on history as much as on the building. The building must have been used solely for agriculture as part of an established agricultural unit on 20 March 2013, or, if it was brought into agricultural use after that date, for ten years before the date of the application.

Proving that is an evidence exercise, and it is usually the weakest part of a prior approval submission. Useful material includes dated aerial photography, Rural Payments Agency records, historic Ordnance Survey extracts, invoices for feed, seed or veterinary services, farm accounts, and statutory declarations from people with direct knowledge of the holding. One statutory declaration on its own rarely persuades.

Where the use itself is in question, rather than the date, a lawful development certificate for an existing use under section 191 of the 1990 Act settles it formally. Time limits for enforcement against an unauthorised change of use in England were extended by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, so check whether the longer limit is in force for your circumstances rather than assuming the older four and ten year rules still apply.

Conditions that tie a building to agricultural occupation

Agricultural occupancy conditions attach to dwellings, not usually to barns, and they restrict occupation to a person solely or mainly employed in agriculture locally, together with dependants and surviving partners.

They are removed or varied by an application under section 73 of the 1990 Act. Authorities expect evidence that there is no longer a local need for the dwelling to be occupied by an agricultural worker, which in practice means marketing the property at a price reflecting the restricted value for a period the authority considers adequate, usually stated in the local plan or an adopted supplementary document.

A different but related condition sometimes appears on barns converted under earlier permissions, restricting use to purposes ancillary to the agricultural holding. Read the decision notice for the original consent before you market a building, because a condition of that kind can defeat a sale.

Where the planning unit itself is the question, the way the authority defines that unit will shape everything else, and the way a planning unit is identified is worth reading before you split a holding or let part of a yard.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports a barn conversion or diversification scheme 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. A lawful development certificate is the only formal way to confirm that a use or works are lawful. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.