A caravan site extension and licensing alongside planning

Adding touring pitches to an existing caravan site needs planning permission for the change of use and the engineering works, and then a separate site licence from the district council before anyone can pitch on them. This illustrative caravan site extension walkthrough follows a 30-pitch touring site in open countryside that applied for 18 additional pitches, and it sets out the landscape case, the occupancy condition, the drainage arithmetic and the licensing sequence that followed.

The example is illustrative. The two-consent structure, the model standards and the conditions are real and apply to any site of this kind.

The site and the proposed additional pitches

Picture a working touring site on the edge of a river valley, 30 grass pitches with electric hook-ups laid out in two bays behind a mature hedge, a toilet and shower block, a small reception and a chemical disposal point. Access is off a C-class road through a bellmouth with reasonable visibility. The site has operated since the 1980s under a permission with a seasonal condition.

The proposal was 18 further pitches on the adjoining field, in a third bay, with an extension to the internal track, a second chemical disposal point, additional hook-ups and a new hedgerow along the northern boundary. No new buildings.

Two consents were needed from the outset. Planning permission for the material change of use of the field together with the engineering operations forming the track and hardstandings, and an amendment to the existing site licence to cover the enlarged area. The licence could not be issued until permission existed, which fixed the order of work.

Landscape and visual effects in open countryside

The field was outside the settlement boundary and within a locally designated landscape, which made landscape the principal issue. A full Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment to the recognised guidelines was commissioned rather than a short appraisal, because the authority's landscape officer had objected to an earlier scheme on the same field.

The assessment did three things that mattered. It identified the receptors properly, which here meant two public rights of way on the valley side, a minor road with intermittent views through gateways, and four dwellings on the opposite slope. It assessed the development as it would appear in use, with caravans and awnings present, rather than as an empty field with a track on it, which is the omission that undermines most caravan site assessments. And it tested a reduced layout alongside the proposed one.

The reduced layout won. Fourteen pitches rather than eighteen, pulled back from the valley-facing edge by 25 metres, with the new hedgerow planted in the first season and a 10-year management regime, produced effects the landscape officer could accept. Four pitches were traded for the recommendation.

Dark skies were handled by proposing no lighting at all beyond low-level bollards at the track junction, on a curfew, which is also what the ecology advice wanted.

Occupancy conditions and holiday use

Occupancy conditions on touring sites do specific work, and the wording repays attention before the decision is issued.

The conditions imposed here were a restriction to touring caravans, motor caravans and trailer tents only, with no static caravans, park homes or lodges at any time. A limit on the duration of any single occupation of a pitch, so the site cannot drift into residential use. A prohibition on use as a sole or main residence. A requirement to maintain a register of occupiers with arrival and departure dates, available to the authority on request. And retention of the existing seasonal closure period.

The register condition is the one applicants resist and the one that makes the rest enforceable. Without it, an authority has no practical means of showing that a unit has been in place for eight months, and officers know that.

One drafting point was negotiated. The original draft limited occupation to 28 days in any 12-month period per occupier, which would have been unworkable for returning seasonal visitors. The agreed wording limited continuous occupation of any one pitch instead, which achieves the planning purpose without penalising repeat custom.

Foul drainage for additional pitches

Touring sites generate two foul streams, and both need addressing. Waste from the toilet block, which is continuous while the site is open, and chemical waste from caravan cassettes emptied at the disposal point, which arrives in slugs and is hostile to a biological treatment process.

The existing package treatment plant was sized for 30 pitches. Adding 14 took it beyond capacity, so the application included an upgrade with the population equivalent calculation shown, the discharge point, the consent position and the percolation testing for the drainage field. Discharge to ground needs either compliance with the general binding rules or an environmental permit from the Environment Agency, and the threshold and conditions should be checked at the point of application rather than assumed from an older consent.

A Foul Sewage Assessment covering all of that was submitted with the application. The chemical disposal point was specified with a holding tank and controlled release to the plant, which is what makes the biological process survive a bank holiday weekend.

Surface water from the new track was dealt with by cross-fall into grass swales, with no piped system and no connection to the watercourse, which suited both the drainage officer and the ecology advice on the river corridor.

Access and internal circulation

The highway authority accepted the existing access without alteration, which was the single biggest factor in the application's cost, and that acceptance rested on evidence rather than on history. A seven-day traffic count at the access, visibility splay measurements against recorded approach speeds, and a swept path analysis for a car and twin-axle caravan combination at the bellmouth were all submitted.

Internally, the model standards for caravan sites drive the layout rather than highway design standards. Track widths for towing vehicles, turning facilities at the head of each bay, gradients, parking for one vehicle per pitch within the pitch, and fire access routes with fire points at stated intervals all come from that document. The familiar separation requirement between units, commonly 6 metres, sets the pitch size and therefore the capacity of the field, so it should be applied before the layout is drawn rather than checked afterwards.

Where an access does need altering, the evidence requirements are considerably heavier, as they are for a new access onto a classified road.

The site licence as a separate consent

The licence is granted by the district council under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, and it is a different regime with different officers and a different focus.

Three points structure the sequence. A licence cannot be issued to someone without the benefit of planning permission for the use of the land as a caravan site, so planning comes first. The licence conditions must not conflict with the planning permission, which means a licence cannot authorise more pitches or a longer season than the permission allows. And the licence deals with the physical standards of the site, drawing on the model standards: spacing, surfacing, water supply, drainage, fire precautions, electrical safety and refuse.

Apply for the licence amendment as soon as the permission is issued, and expect a site visit. Where the model standards and the approved layout differ, the licensing officer will ask for the layout to change, so test the proposed layout against the standards during the planning application rather than discovering the conflict afterwards.

Note also that some small sites operate under exemptions in Schedule 1 to the 1960 Act, including certificated locations run by exempted organisations, and those have their own limits on numbers and duration. An exemption is not a route to expanding a licensed commercial site.

Conditions imposed on the permission

The permission, as granted, carried fourteen conditions. The ones worth planning around were the reduction to 14 pitches in accordance with the approved layout, the occupancy and register conditions described above, landscaping implemented in the first planting season with a 10-year management plan and replacement of losses within five years, no external lighting other than the approved bollards, the treatment plant upgrade completed and commissioned before any new pitch was occupied, no additional hardstanding without consent, and a construction method statement covering the river corridor.

Biodiversity net gain applied, and the field was improved grassland of low distinctiveness, so the new hedgerow and a wildflower margin delivered the gain on site. The statutory metric still had to be completed by a competent person under the Environment Act 2021 regime, with the gain plan approved by the authority, and hedgerow units were assessed separately from area units.

The lesson from this kind of application is about sequence. The landscape assessment was run before the layout was fixed, which is why a 14-pitch scheme was recommended rather than an 18-pitch scheme refused. And the model standards were applied at design stage, which is why the licence followed the permission without a redesign.

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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