B2 to B8 and back: what Part 3 actually permits

Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order lets a general industrial building move to storage and distribution use, and it lets both move to the business part of Class E, subject to a floorspace limit on the changes involving storage. What it does not do is let you come back. There is no permitted development right from B8 storage and distribution to B2 general industrial, so a landlord who switches an industrial unit to warehousing has given up the industrial use unless a planning permission or a lawful use certificate says otherwise.

That asymmetry is the single most useful thing to know about B2 to B8 permitted development, and it catches asset managers regularly.

The classes involved and what each covers

B2 is general industrial: industrial processes other than those that fall within Class E(g), which covers light industrial use capable of being carried out in a residential area without detriment to amenity.

B8 is storage or distribution, including open air storage. The class covers warehousing, distribution centres and yards used for storing goods.

Class E(g) covers offices, research and development, and light industrial processes. It was created when the use classes were restructured in 2020, absorbing the old B1 uses, which is why older guidance referring to B1 needs reading with care.

Several uses that look industrial sit outside all three. Scrap yards, waste transfer stations and many vehicle-related operations are sui generis, and a sui generis use has no permitted development right to change at all. That classification question is the first thing to settle, and it is the same problem examined in taxi and private hire offices and the classification problem.

A change of use within the same class is not development at all, under section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Two different manufacturing processes in the same B2 building need nothing.

The permitted changes and their floorspace caps

The current structure of Part 3 permits movement between these classes in defined directions, with a floorspace limit attached to the changes involving storage and distribution.

The floorspace limit on storage-related changes has stood at 500 m² for many years. Part 3 has been amended repeatedly, so read the current text of the Order rather than relying on a figure quoted in a report or in an older article, including this one.

Measure the floorspace carefully. The limit applies to the floorspace changing use, so a 1,200 m² unit cannot be split into three 400 m² changes, and a mezzanine may count depending on how it was created.

Changes that need a full application

Four situations take you out of Part 3 and into an application.

Movement into general industrial use from anything else. There is no right to create a B2 use, because the amenity consequences of an industrial process are precisely what the planning system wants to assess.

Changes above the floorspace limit for storage uses. A 2,000 m² industrial unit becoming a warehouse needs permission.

Changes involving a sui generis use in either direction, including the open storage and waste operations mentioned above.

And any change where a condition on the original permission or an Article 4 direction has removed the right, which on modern industrial estates is common.

An application brings the development plan with it. That means employment policies, highway impact, amenity and sometimes air quality all become live, and the supporting documents grow accordingly. A Transport Statement is frequently the document that decides a warehousing application, because vehicle movements and servicing change character even when floorspace does not.

Conditions attached to the permitted changes

Permitted development is not unconditional, and three sets of restrictions apply.

The Order itself attaches conditions to some Part 3 classes, so read the class and its conditions together rather than the headline right alone.

Conditions on the existing planning permission frequently restrict use more tightly than the use class does. A unit permitted for B2 use with a condition restricting occupation to a named use, limiting hours, or removing permitted development rights for changes of use cannot rely on Part 3. These conditions are everywhere on estates built since the 1990s, and the planning history has to be checked unit by unit.

Article 4 directions can remove Part 3 rights in defined areas. Authorities have used them to protect industrial land from conversion, particularly in London and in other areas with pressure on employment floorspace.

Check all three before committing to a letting. A tenant who takes a unit on the basis of a permitted change that a 2003 condition prohibits has a problem that surfaces at the first enforcement complaint.

Reverting after a permitted change

The general position is that a use implemented under a permitted development right becomes the lawful use of the building, and there is no automatic right to go back.

Some rights are expressed as temporary with a reversion, and the flexible arrangements for buildings used alternately for two purposes work differently again, as set out in alternating uses in one building. But for the industrial and storage changes in Part 3, reversion is not provided for. Going from B8 back to B2 needs a planning application.

Where the previous use is still subsisting, the position may be different, and there are circumstances in which a use that was never abandoned can be resumed. That is a question of fact and degree about abandonment, and it needs legal advice rather than an assumption.

The practical lesson for asset managers is to think about the exit before implementing a change. A short-term warehousing letting that extinguishes an industrial use may cost more in flexibility than it earns in rent, particularly where local policy resists the return of industrial uses to a site surrounded by housing.

Employment land policies that still apply

Part 3 rights sit outside the development plan, which is why they are valuable. Everything else does not.

Where an application is needed, local plan policies protecting employment land apply in full: tests on marketing evidence, requirements to demonstrate that the site is no longer viable or suitable for its allocated use, and sometimes a requirement to provide replacement floorspace. An Employment Land Assessment is the document that addresses those tests, and on an allocated site it is usually unavoidable.

Policy has also tightened around the loss of industrial capacity in urban areas, partly because last-mile logistics competes for the same floorspace, a tension examined in last-mile parcel depots in urban locations.

Evidence of the lawful use

Every argument above depends on knowing the existing lawful use, and that is rarely as clear as the rating list suggests.

The evidence that stands up is the planning history with any conditions, previous lawful use certificates, rating records, tenancy agreements and occupational history, utility and waste records showing the nature of operations, and photographs with dates.

A Lawful Development Certificate under section 191 or 192 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is the only formal way to confirm that an existing use or a proposed change is lawful. On a building with a muddled history, applying for one before a letting costs less than defending an enforcement notice afterwards, and a Planning Statement setting out the use history is the supporting document that application turns on.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

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