Camping and caravan use under the 60 day right

Part 4 of the General Permitted Development Order contains two separate temporary use rights, and confusing them is what gets landowners an enforcement notice. The general temporary use right allows land to be used for any purpose for a limited number of days each calendar year. The temporary recreational campsite right allows camping specifically, for a longer period, with a cap on pitches and a set of conditions attached, including notifying the local planning authority before the use starts.

They are separate allowances. Running a campsite under one and a wedding marquee under the other is possible, but the day counts do not merge, and the record keeping has to show which day was used for what.

What the rights allow

The general right in Part 4 covers the temporary use of land, other than a building, for any purpose, together with moveable structures provided for the purposes of that use. The annual allowance is limited, with a shorter sub-limit for markets and for motor vehicle racing. It is the right that underpins farm open days, seasonal car parking, festivals and short lets of a field.

The recreational campsite right is narrower in purpose and more generous in duration, permitting use of land as a campsite for a longer annual period with a maximum number of pitches, subject to conditions covering the facilities that may be provided and the land the right does not apply to.

The exclusions matter more than the headline numbers. Both rights are restricted on certain designated and hazardous land, and the lists have been amended more than once. Read the current text of Part 4 on the legislation service before planning a season. Anyone relying on a summary written before the last amendment is relying on the wrong numbers, and that includes summaries published by otherwise reliable sources.

Counting the days

Count generously and write it down as you go. The day count is the single point on which enforcement cases are decided, and the burden of showing that a use is within a permitted development right falls on the person relying on it.

Three habits protect you.

1. Keep a dated diary of every day the land is in the temporary use, with photographs. A phone photograph with its date is better evidence than a spreadsheet compiled afterwards.
2. Count setting up and clearing away. A marquee erected on the Thursday for a Saturday event has put the land into that use on the Thursday, and an authority will treat it that way.
3. Keep separate columns for separate rights and separate parcels. The allowance attaches to the land, so two fields can each have their own count, but only if the parcels are identifiable and the records show which was used.

Bookings, invoices, social media posts and card terminal records are all obtainable by the authority. A diary that disagrees with the booking system is worse than no diary at all.

Structures that fall outside the right

Moveable structures are permitted for the purposes of the temporary use, and they have to go when the use stops. Anything that stays is a separate question.

Hardstanding, an all-weather access track, a permanent shower or toilet block, a reception building, a septic tank, fixed lighting columns and permanent service connections are all operational development requiring planning permission in their own right. So is engineering work to level a field.

This is where most temporary campsites drift into a breach. The first season runs on portable toilets and a mown track. The second season adds a gravel surface because the field cut up, and a timber shower block because guests complained. At that point there is permanent development on the land and a use that is no longer temporary in character, and the authority is entitled to look at the whole picture rather than at the day count.

Caravans add a second regime. Site licensing under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 runs alongside planning, with its own exemptions for small numbers of vans, for certificated sites operated by exempted organisations and for use within the curtilage of a dwelling. The exemptions are not the same as the planning day limits, and satisfying one does not satisfy the other. The practical detail of stationing vans on farmland is covered in mobile homes and caravans on agricultural land.

Facilities that turn a temporary use into a change of use

Ask one question about every improvement: would a visitor arriving in February know this field is used as a campsite?

Permanent pitch markers, numbered bays, a hardstanding entrance apron, a bin store, a fixed sign at the gate and mains water standpipes all answer yes. Once the answer is yes for several of them together, the character of the land has changed and the use is no longer temporary, whatever the calendar says.

Officers assess this in the round rather than item by item. That makes it hard to advise on precisely, and it is the honest uncertainty in this area: there is no threshold in the Order, only a judgement about character that an inspector will make on the evidence.

Moving to a permanent permission

Where the operation works, applying for permission is usually the better outcome than running a bigger business inside a smaller right. A change of use application for a campsite or a certificated caravan site normally needs:

• A Planning Statement setting out the rural economy and tourism policies in the development plan and how the proposal meets them.
• A landscape appraisal, or a full Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment where the site is in or near a National Landscape or National Park.
• An ecological appraisal, particularly where the field has been grazed rather than cropped and may hold species-rich grassland.
• Highway evidence at the access, since the visibility standards at a field gate were never designed for touring caravans. Rural road visibility evidence has to be measured on site.
• Foul drainage and water supply details, and a lighting strategy in a dark landscape area.

Expect the authority to offer a temporary or seasonal permission first, with conditions limiting the number of pitches, the operating months and the removal of units outside the season. Take it. A three year permission with a clean compliance record is the strongest possible case for a permanent one.

Enforcement, and what to keep

A local planning authority that suspects the day limits have been exceeded will usually start with a planning contravention notice requiring information about the use of the land. Answering it accurately is a legal obligation, and answering it evasively converts a manageable situation into a prosecution risk.

If an enforcement notice follows, the appeal grounds available include that planning permission was not required because the development was permitted, and that is where the diary earns its cost. Ground of appeal aside, a temporary stop notice can halt the use immediately, in the middle of a booked season.

Keep the records for at least ten years. Keep them in a form someone else could read. And if a season is going to run over the allowance, apply for permission in the spring rather than arguing about it in August.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which documents a rural tourism or campsite application 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 works or a use are lawful. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.