Class G: converting upper floors over shops to flats

Class G lets you keep the shop and put up to two flats above it, with a prior approval application instead of full planning permission. It sits in Schedule 2, Part 3 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, and it authorises a mixed use: the commercial unit continues, and the flats join it in the same planning unit. That distinction is the whole point of the class, and it is where most misunderstandings start.

If you want the building to end up wholly residential, Class G is the wrong tool.

What Class G of Part 3 permits and its limits

The right turns a building in commercial use into a building in mixed commercial and residential use. Two flats is the cap. The ground floor use carries on.

Three limits deserve attention before anything else.

The first is that this is a change of use right and nothing more. Class G does not authorise building operations. New dormers to make the second-floor rooms habitable, a rear window to light a bedroom, a bin store in the yard, an external stair to give the flats their own access: every one of those is a separate application. Landlords who secure prior approval and then discover the flats cannot lawfully be built have usually skipped this step.

The second is that the commercial use must survive. A mixed use is not a residential use with a dormant shop attached. Where the ground floor is boarded up indefinitely while the flats are let, the planning unit has arguably become something the Order never permitted.

The third is that the class does not apply everywhere. Listed buildings sit outside it, and an Article 4 direction can remove it entirely.

Which ground floor uses allow the conversion

Since the 2020 reorganisation of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987, most high street commercial uses fall inside Class E, which covers shops, financial and professional services, cafes and restaurants, indoor sport, medical services, creches, offices, research and light industry. Class G is drawn to work with that grouping, and the Order also reaches certain uses that sit outside the use classes altogether, such as betting offices and pay day loan shops.

Check the actual lawful use of the ground floor before assuming. A unit trading as a cafe may still be lawfully a hot food takeaway, which is a sui generis use rather than Class E, and the answer changes what the Order permits.

Read the current text of Part 3 rather than a summary, including this one. Part 3 has been amended repeatedly since 2015, and the list of qualifying ground floor uses is the part most likely to have moved.

The prior approval matters that apply

A Class G prior approval application asks the council to consider a defined list of impacts, set out in the Order, rather than the general planning merits. In practice the recurring four are transport and highways impacts, the risk of contamination on the site, flood risk, and the effect of noise from the commercial premises on the people who will live above them.

That last one bites hardest above food and drink uses. Extraction plant on a rear elevation, refrigeration condensers in a yard, deliveries at 6am and a late licence all produce sound at the point where bedrooms are about to appear. A short Noise Impact Assessment that measures the actual plant and sets glazing and ventilation performance costs far less than an objection from environmental health.

Contamination arises more often than landlords expect on older parades, where a former dry cleaner or a filling station in the yard leaves a history. A desk study, submitted as a contamination report, answers the question before it is asked. Flood risk is a map check first: if the building sits in Flood Zone 2 or 3, expect the council to want the sleeping accommodation assessed rather than waved through.

Access, refuse and amenity questions the council will raise

Officers look at the practical living arrangements even where the prior approval list is narrow, because several of the listed matters can only be answered by describing them.

The recurring problems are worth listing plainly.

• Access. Flats reached only through the shop are not acceptable, and a separate front door usually means losing display frontage or building an external stair that needs its own permission.
• Refuse. Two flats generate bins that have to be stored somewhere other than the pavement and dragged a reasonable distance to a collection point.
• Natural light and outlook. Deep first floors over small shops often have habitable rooms with a single small window to the rear.
• Private amenity space. Rarely available, and rarely fatal, but worth addressing directly rather than ignoring.
• Fire separation between the commercial unit and the flats, which is a Building Regulations matter but frequently drives the internal layout you submit.

Deal with these in a short Planning Statement rather than leaving the officer to infer them from drawings.

Where Class G is better than Class MA

Class MA converts commercial floorspace wholly to residential, subject to its own conditions including a period of vacancy and a floorspace limit. It is the busier route, and it is often the wrong one.

The practical case for Class G is a parade where the retail income is real and the upper floors are storage. You keep the rent, you add two units, and you avoid the vacancy requirement that Class MA imposes.

Where highways is a live issue in a town centre with controlled parking, a short Transport Statement covering the parking position and servicing arrangements is a proportionate answer for a two-flat scheme.

Article 4 directions and other exclusions

Article 4 directions remove permitted development rights in a defined area, and town centres and conservation areas are the common targets. A direction covering Part 3 changes of use will stop Class G in its tracks, and there is no way round it other than a full application.

Check three things before spending money: the council's published list of Article 4 directions and the map that goes with it, whether the building is listed or in the curtilage of a listed building, and whether earlier permissions or conditions on the site have removed permitted development rights. Conditions attached to a 1990s consent for the parade can be as effective as a direction.

What to submit with the notification

Keep the pack tight and complete. A site location plan with the building edged red, existing and proposed floor plans showing the retained commercial floorspace and the two flats, a description of the ground floor use with evidence of what is lawful, and short statements on each prior approval matter that applies. Add the acoustic, contamination or flood evidence where the site calls for it, and pay the correct fee.

Then watch the 56 day period. It runs from receipt of a valid application, so a missing plan on day one costs you the whole clock.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which supporting reports a flats-over-shops scheme is likely to need before you apply.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it, and remember that a lawful development certificate is the only formal way to confirm that works are lawful. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.