Class E(d) gyms and the F2 community boundary

A gym is Class E(d). A swimming pool is Class F2. Both are indoor sport, both serve the public, and the Use Classes Order puts them in different classes with different consequences.

That is not a drafting accident. Class E is the commercial, business and service class, designed so that occupiers can move between uses without an application. Class F2 is the local community class, designed so that the uses inside it are protected from casual conversion. The result is a boundary that catches people out in both directions.

What Class E(d) covers

Class E(d) is use for indoor sport, recreation or fitness, not involving motorised vehicles or firearms, principally to visiting members of the public.

That takes in gyms, fitness studios, indoor climbing walls, trampoline parks, indoor bowls, martial arts studios, dance studios operating commercially, squash courts and indoor five a side. The two exclusions are explicit: anything involving motorised vehicles, such as an indoor karting track, and anything involving firearms, including a shooting range. Both are sui generis.

The phrase "principally to visiting members of the public" does real work. A facility used only by the employees of the business occupying the building is ancillary to that use rather than a Class E(d) use in its own right. A private members' club whose members visit the premises is generally still within E(d), while a facility with no public element at all sits outside it.

What falls into Class F2 instead

Class F2 is local community uses and has four limbs. A shop of no more than 280 square metres selling essential goods, including food, where there is no other such facility within 1,000 metres. A hall or meeting place for the principal use of the local community. An area or place for outdoor sport or recreation, again excluding motorised vehicles and firearms. And an indoor or outdoor swimming pool or skating rink.

Two of those matter here. Outdoor sport is F2, so an outdoor tennis centre and an indoor tennis centre are in different classes. And swimming pools and skating rinks are F2 wherever they are, indoors or out.

So a leisure centre containing a pool, a sports hall and a gym is a mixed use spanning both classes, and the planning history usually reflects that in a way nobody anticipated when the building was consented. Splitting such a building later, or converting part of it, means working out which parts of the floorspace sit in which class before anything else.

Why the distinction changes what you can do

Three consequences follow, and they are the reason this is worth getting right before a lease is signed.

The first is free movement. Movement within Class E is not development under section 55(2)(f) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, so a former shop, office, restaurant or clinic can become a gym with no application for the use. Nothing equivalent applies to F2, and moving from F2 into E, or from E into F2, is a change of use needing permission.

The second is the residential conversion route. The Class MA prior approval route from commercial premises to dwellinghouses applies to Class E buildings. An F2 building cannot use it, which is one reason a former swimming pool or community hall is a harder redevelopment prospect than a former shop of the same size.

The third is policy protection. Local plans routinely include a policy resisting the loss of community facilities, and F2 uses are the ones those policies are written around. A proposal to lose a pool or a hall will attract a requirement for marketing evidence, evidence of need, and often a replacement facility. A gym closing and becoming a nail bar attracts none of that, because both are Class E.

Where the real decision happens

Having said all that, the use class is rarely what decides an application for a sports or leisure facility. The decision points are noise, hours and parking, and they apply on both sides of the E and F2 line.

Noise divides into three sources that need separating in the evidence. Fixed plant, assessed under BS 4142:2014+A1:2019. Activity noise inside the building, including music, impact from dropped weights and the particular problem of a skating rink's public address system. And noise from people arriving and leaving, which on a late opening facility is usually what generates the complaints. A Noise Impact Assessment that treats all three separately is more persuasive than one that averages them.

Hours are the second. Councils condition opening hours on any facility close to housing, and the argument is about the last hour rather than the first. Offer a closing time you can live with rather than defending a 24 hour operation you do not need.

Parking is the third, and the pattern is specific to the use. Gyms peak early and late on weekdays. Swimming pools peak at weekends and during school holidays, with a long dwell time and a high proportion of family trips. Skating rinks peak on Friday and Saturday evenings. A parking survey taken at the wrong time of week proves nothing, so agree the survey periods with the highway officer before commissioning it.

Evidence to submit for a change into E(d)

For a change from outside Class E, the pack is a Planning Statement setting out the existing lawful use, the class analysis and the policy position, a noise assessment covering plant and activity, a transport note with trip generation and parking evidence, and drawings showing the internal layout, plant positions and any external alterations.

Where the existing use is already within Class E, the use itself needs no application and the submission is only about the works. Say so plainly in the covering letter, because a case officer who does not follow the class analysis will ask for a change of use application you do not need.

Where the proposal involves losing an F2 facility, a Social Infrastructure Assessment setting out the catchment, the alternative provision and the marketing history is what answers the community facilities policy.

Check the planning history for conditions before any of this. A leisure unit consented as part of a retail scheme frequently carries a condition restricting the use, and that condition survives the class analysis entirely. The same applies to conditions imposed on a former F2 building when it was first built, which often tie the floorspace to community use in perpetuity.

One more thing worth doing early. Where the building was previously in public ownership, or was funded through a planning obligation, check whether a restrictive covenant or a clawback provision applies. Those are private law matters that the planning system will not tell you about, and they have stopped more leisure conversions than the Use Classes Order ever has.

This is general guidance rather than legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.