Class E and what the 2020 use classes reform replaced

On 1 September 2020 the shop, the office, the restaurant, the gym, the nursery and the doctor's surgery became the same thing in planning terms. Use Class E swallowed six former classes, and moving between any of the uses inside it stopped being development at all. For a business looking at a vacant unit, use class E explained is the difference between an eight week application and a change of signage.

The reform came through the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020, amending the Use Classes Order 1987. It applies in England only.

What was consolidated

Class E, described as commercial, business and service, absorbed the old A1 shops, A2 financial and professional services, A3 restaurants and cafes, B1 business in all its parts, and the parts of D1 and D2 that suit a commercial setting.

Its limbs cover retail sale of goods other than hot food, sale of food and drink mostly consumed on the premises, financial and professional services, indoor sport and fitness, medical and health services, creches and day nurseries, and offices, research and development and light industrial processes that can be carried on in a residential area without detriment to amenity.

Two new classes were created alongside it. Class F1 covers learning and non-residential institutions such as schools, museums, public libraries, public halls, places of worship and law courts. Class F2 covers local community uses, including a shop of no more than 280 square metres selling mostly essential goods where there is no other such facility within 1,000 metres, community halls, outdoor sport and swimming pools and skating rinks.

That 280 square metre village shop provision is worth knowing. It protects the last shop in a settlement from being converted freely, and it catches owners who assume every small shop sits in Class E.

Movements inside Class E

Using a building for any purpose within the same class is not development. That is the operative rule, and it is why a former bank can become a gym, a nursery or a restaurant without an application.

What this does not remove is everything else. Physical works to the shopfront may need planning permission. Extraction, plant and external alterations certainly can. An office becoming a restaurant brings cooking odour, deliveries, refuse and late hours, none of which the use classes reform touched. The Ventilation and Extraction Statement is often the document a council asks for in exactly this situation, and environmental health will have a view whether or not planning permission is needed.

Listed buildings and conservation areas are unaffected too. A free change of use inside Class E does not license the flue, the extract terminal or the illuminated fascia that goes with it.

What was left outside

The uses that generate the most amenity complaints were deliberately excluded and made sui generis, meaning they sit in no class at all and any change to or from them is a material change of use.

The practical effect is sharp. A cafe in Class E that starts selling mainly hot food for consumption off the premises has moved into a sui generis use and needs planning permission. So has a restaurant that reorients itself as a bar. Councils look at the balance of the trade rather than the name over the door.

Conditions referring to the old classes

This is the trap that catches the most occupiers, and it catches professional advisers too.

Where a permission granted before September 2020 carries a condition restricting the use to a named former class, that condition continues to have effect by reference to the class as it was. A unit permitted subject to a condition limiting it to A1 retail is still limited to A1 retail, and the freedom inside Class E is simply not available to it.

So read the planning history first. And read it before the lease, not after. Find the original permission, read every condition, and check for later variations. Retail parks, edge of centre units, mixed use ground floors and anything permitted through a masterplan are the places these conditions cluster. Units consented as part of a residential scheme are another, because the restriction was often imposed to protect the flats above from noise, cooking smells and late deliveries. A landlord who tells you the unit is Class E is describing the class the use falls within, which is not the same as telling you what the permission allows.

Where a condition bites, the route out is an application under section 73 to vary or remove it. That is a full application on the merits, and the council will assess the effect of removing the restriction rather than waving it through.

Article 4 directions and the response

Councils reacted to the reform in two ways. Some made Article 4 directions removing permitted development rights that allow Class E premises to become homes. Others adopted policies protecting particular frontages or clusters.

An Article 4 direction does not affect movement inside Class E, because that movement is not development and there is nothing for the direction to remove. Directions target the permitted development rights in Part 3 of the GPDO, principally the Class MA route from commercial to residential. National policy has since expected such directions to be limited to situations where they are necessary to avoid wholly unacceptable harm, which has narrowed their scope.

Class MA itself has been amended more than once since it was introduced in August 2021, including changes to the floorspace cap and the vacancy requirement. Check the current text of Part 3 rather than a summary written at the time, and follow changes through the planning law timeline.

Evidencing an existing lawful use

None of the above helps if you cannot show what the lawful use is.

1. Obtain the planning history for the unit from the council's online register, including every permission and every condition.
2. Gather evidence of actual use over time: leases, rating records, accounts, dated photographs, trading records.
3. Where the position is unclear, apply for a Lawful Development Certificate for an existing use under section 191 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
4. Where you want confirmation before committing, apply for a certificate for a proposed use under section 192 instead.

A certificate costs a fee and takes eight weeks, and it is the only formal way to settle the question. For a tenant signing a fifteen year lease on a unit whose planning history is messy, that is a modest price. The policy and history narrative belongs in a Planning Statement where an application turns out to be needed.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance rather than legal advice, so check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. Browse the PlanScope report types to see what a change of use application usually needs.