Caravan and camping sites: permission and the licence

Opening a caravan or camping site needs two separate approvals, from the same council but under different laws, and they are not interchangeable. Planning permission deals with whether the use of the land is acceptable. A site licence under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 deals with how the site is laid out and run, covering spacing, roads, water, drainage, fire points and facilities. You need planning permission first, because the licensing authority cannot grant a licence for a use that has no permission.

That sequence is the most useful thing a landowner can know at the outset, and it is the thing most often discovered in the wrong order.

Why a caravan site needs planning permission and a licence

Stationing caravans on land for people to live in or holiday in is a material change of use of the land, so it is development under section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and needs permission unless it falls within a specific exemption.

The site licence then sits on top. Section 1 of the 1960 Act makes it an offence to use land as a caravan site without a licence, subject to the exemptions in Schedule 1. Licence conditions follow model standards published by government, which cover matters such as spacing between units, boundary distances, hard standings, road widths, water supply, drainage, refuse and fire safety provision. A licence cannot be granted unless planning permission for use as a caravan site is in force, and its duration is tied to the permission.

Camping on its own, with tents rather than caravans, is not caught by the 1960 Act in the same way, though a tent site can still need planning permission and will engage other regimes, including licensing for any alcohol sales and food hygiene registration for catering.

The two regimes and which comes first

Plan the sequence backwards from opening day.

1. Establish the planning position: is there an exemption, is the use already lawful, or is permission needed?
2. Apply for planning permission, with the evidence set out below.
3. Once permission is granted, apply to the same council for the site licence.
4. Design the layout to the model standards during the planning stage, not after, because a layout that satisfies planning but breaches spacing standards has to be redrawn.
5. Deal with the separate regimes: building regulations for any amenity block, water supply and drainage approvals, fire risk assessment, and any highway works agreement.

Step four is the one that costs money when skipped. The model standards drive pitch density directly, so a plan showing more pitches than the standards permit is not a plan, it is an aspiration.

Exempted organisations and short duration uses

Schedule 1 to the 1960 Act contains exemptions, and they matter because they are what many rural businesses actually rely on.

The categories include use incidental to a dwelling house within its curtilage, agricultural and forestry workers' accommodation in certain circumstances, building and engineering sites, travelling showpeople in defined circumstances, sites occupied and supervised by exempted organisations, and short-term use of land for limited periods in a calendar year with limits on the number of caravans. Certificated locations operated under a certificate issued by an exempted organisation are how a great many small farm sites run lawfully.

Separately, Part 4 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 grants temporary use rights for land, which is what the widely cited 28-day allowance derives from. The number of days and the conditions attached have been amended more than once, and different limits apply to different uses, so check the current text of Part 4 rather than relying on a remembered figure. Treat any statement about the number of days you may camp without permission as something to verify before you advertise.

Two traps with exemptions. Exceeding the exemption, even by a few units or a few days, means the whole use needs permission and a licence. And an exemption that depends on supervision by an exempted organisation ends when the arrangement with that organisation ends.

Static and touring pitches treated differently

Councils treat the two as different propositions, and they are right to.

Touring pitches are occupied by units that leave. The landscape effect is seasonal, the infrastructure is lighter, and the planning concern is mostly access, drainage and the visual effect during the season. Conditions commonly limit the season, the number of pitches and the length of stay.

Static caravans and lodges are, in practice, buildings that arrive on wheels. They have a year-round landscape presence, they need hard standings, services and often decking, and they raise the question of permanent occupation directly. Expect a much harder look at landscape effect, at the design and colour of units, and at whether the site will become a residential estate in all but name.

Where both are proposed, describe them separately on the application form and on the layout, with numbers for each. A permission for "caravan site" with no breakdown invites a condition that fixes the mix in a way you did not intend.

Access, drainage and facilities evidence

The technical evidence a rural caravan site application needs is more predictable than most applicants expect:

• visibility splays at the access, measured to the relevant standard for the road speed, with any hedge removal shown and its own consequences addressed
• swept path analysis for the largest vehicle expected, which for statics means a transporter rather than a car and caravan
• internal road widths and turning, coordinated with the model licensing standards
• foul drainage, which on most rural sites means a package treatment plant with its own permit or exemption, or a connection if one exists
• surface water drainage for hard standings and any amenity building, with infiltration tested
• water supply, including the flows needed for fire fighting provision
• refuse and recycling storage, and the collection arrangement
• lighting, designed to avoid obtrusive light in a dark landscape, with the specification stated

Our note on describing a mixed use on the application form is relevant where a site combines camping with a shop, cafe or events, because the description of development determines what the permission actually allows.

Landscape effect and seasonal occupancy

In a National Landscape, National Park, Green Belt or open countryside setting, landscape effect is usually the deciding issue.

What helps: siting units below skylines and against existing tree belts, limiting the number and height of units, specifying muted colours and finishes, planting that is credible in scale and timescale, keeping hard standings permeable and narrow, and avoiding suburban details such as kerbs, close-boarded fencing and white lodges. What does not help: a landscape plan showing mature planting the year after opening.

Seasonal conditions deserve thought rather than acceptance. A condition closing the site from November to February limits the landscape effect in the months when screening is thinnest, and it also limits your trading. If the business needs a longer season, argue for it with evidence about screening in winter and about the pattern of arrivals, rather than accepting a condition and applying to vary it later.

Occupancy conditions restricting permanent living

This is the condition that matters most for the value and the lawfulness of a holiday site.

Holiday occupancy conditions take several forms: a prohibition on use as a person's sole or main residence, a maximum period of occupation by any one person, a requirement to close for a defined period, and a requirement to keep a register of occupiers available for inspection. The register condition is the one that makes the others enforceable, and councils increasingly impose it.

Breaching an occupancy condition is a breach of condition, enforceable by notice, and it also affects lending, insurance and council tax treatment. An operator who allows a family to live year-round in a static on a holiday site is creating a problem for the site, not just for that family.

Where the use becomes residential

The line between a holiday site and a residential caravan site is crossed by the pattern of occupation, not by the label on the brochure. Where units are occupied as sole or main residences, the use is residential, which needs its own planning permission and brings a different licensing position, including the protections that apply to residential mobile home sites.

If permanent residential use is the intention, apply for that. It is a different planning case, engaging housing policy, the countryside policies in the National Planning Policy Framework in its current edition, and, on a site of any scale, affordable housing and infrastructure questions. A Planning Statement has to address the right policy set, and a holiday application dressed as something it is not tends to be refused and then enforced against.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority and a qualified professional before relying on it. Where the lawfulness of an existing site or level of use is in doubt, a Lawful Development Certificate under section 191 or 192 of the 1990 Act is the only formal way to settle it.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports a caravan or camping proposal on your land is likely to need. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.