Co-working space and the limits of Class E flexibility

Co-working space is an office use, and office use sits inside the flexible commercial class, so opening one in a former office or shop generally needs no planning permission. The limits show up later, when the business model adds evening events, a public bar, ticketed talks and a hire-out space for parties. Co-working space planning questions are almost always about that drift, because a use that starts inside the class can grow into something outside it without anyone applying for anything.

What the class permits without an application

The flexible commercial class covers retail, cafés and restaurants, financial and professional services, indoor fitness, medical uses, nurseries, offices, research and development and light industrial processes suitable in a residential area.

Movement between those uses is not development. A shop can become a co-working office, a co-working office can add a café that is open to the public, and neither step needs permission.

That is broader than most occupiers assume, and it is the reason the class was created. What it does not do is authorise uses that sit outside the class.

Where events and hospitality take the use outside

Three categories to watch, all of which sit outside the flexible class.

• Drinking establishments, meaning premises whose primary use is the sale of drink for consumption on the premises.
• Venues for live music, dancing and similar assembly uses, which are treated as uses in their own right.
• Hot food takeaway, where food is sold for consumption off the premises.

A members' bar open to the public four evenings a week is not a café ancillary to an office. It is a drinking establishment, whatever the branding says, and it needs planning permission.

The test the courts and inspectors apply looks at what actually happens on the land and at whether an activity has become a separate primary use rather than one that remains subordinate to the main use. Floor area given over to the activity, hours, whether the public are admitted, whether it is separately marketed and whether it generates its own income stream all feed into that judgement.

Ancillary café and bar provision

An ancillary use is one that serves the primary use. A coffee counter for members, a small kitchen, a fridge with beer for Friday afternoons: ancillary, provided it stays incidental in scale and function.

The drift happens gradually. Opening the café to the street. Adding a licence and evening hours. Hiring the space for private functions at weekends. Each step looks minor and the cumulative effect is a different planning unit.

Where the café includes hot food preparation, extraction is its own issue. Ductwork to roof level, odour control and the noise of the fan all need addressing, and an Extraction Statement is the document councils expect for anything beyond a sandwich counter.

If the intention is a public café or bar from the outset, apply for it and get the position settled. A permission with conditions you have negotiated is a better asset than an unauthorised use that a new neighbour reports in year three.

Evening events, noise and residential neighbours

Residential neighbours rarely object to daytime desk use. They object to people outside at 10.30pm, to amplified sound, to doors opening onto a street and to taxis at midnight.

Where evening use is proposed, deal with it directly in the application. Sound insulation of the envelope, the position and specification of any amplified sound, a limit on external areas after a stated hour, a dispersal arrangement, smoking area location and a named contact for complaints all help. A Noise Impact Assessment that assesses both the building services and the activity noise is the evidence an environmental health officer needs.

A licence under the licensing regime is a separate application with its own objectives and its own hearing, and it does not resolve the planning question.

Cycle parking, showers and travel planning

Local plan standards for cycle parking apply to new floorspace and often to changes of use, and co-working uses generate higher cycle demand than conventional offices because occupancy density is higher.

Provide long stay cycle parking that is secure, covered and accessible without carrying a bike up steps, along with showers and lockers where the standard requires. Where the space is large enough to trigger a policy threshold, a travel plan may be required, and a Transport Statement covering trip generation and servicing is often asked for with any application. The occupancy assumption used in both should match the one the fire strategy uses.

Car parking is usually the weaker case in a town centre location, and the stronger argument is the accessibility of the site rather than the number of spaces. Set out walking distances to stations and bus stops, and say what the membership agreement says about parking, because operators often control it through their own terms.

Conditions that may already restrict the building

This is where occupiers get caught. The freedom to move within the class can be removed by a planning condition on the permission that created the building or its last change of use.

1. Obtain the planning history for the unit, including all decision notices.
2. Read every condition, particularly any restricting the use to a specific purpose.
3. Check for conditions on hours, deliveries, plant and external areas.
4. Check whether an article 4 direction applies to the area.
5. Check the lease, which frequently restricts use more tightly than planning does.

A condition restricting a building to office use only, imposed when permission was granted, prevents reliance on the wider class. Removing it means a section 73 application, which is a decision on the merits and not a formality.

Fire escape and occupancy density belong to the Building Regulations rather than to planning, though the two interact. A co-working floor operating at a higher occupancy than the previous office will need the escape provision checked, and where the building is tall enough to be caught by the fire safety regime at planning stage a fire statement may be required with any application.

An illustrative example: a two storey former shop converted to co-working, with a street-facing café and monthly ticketed evening events, is likely to be within the class for the desks and the café, and outside it for regular ticketed events with bar service. The sensible route is an application that describes the whole operation, with conditions on hours and event frequency, rather than an argument about whether each element is ancillary.

One honest uncertainty. The boundary between an ancillary activity and a separate use is a question of fact and degree, and two officers can reach different views on the same operation. That is a reason to describe the business accurately in the application rather than to minimise it, because a permission granted on a partial description is worth less than it looks.

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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