Roadside farm caravan and campsite: the 28 day rules

The 28 day rule lets you use a field for camping without planning permission for a limited number of days each calendar year, and it is narrower than most farmers assume. It comes from the temporary use of land rights in Part 4 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015, it counts days across the whole planning unit rather than per pitch, and it does not authorise permanent works. Add a toilet block, a hardstanding or a sign, and you are outside it.

What the temporary use of land allowance actually permits

The right allows land to be used temporarily for any purpose, other than certain excluded ones, for a limited number of days in a calendar year, together with any moveable structure needed for that use. Tents, touring caravans and portable toilets are moveable structures. A timber shower block on a concrete slab is not.

The allowance has been changed by government more than once in recent years, including temporary increases, so check the current text of Part 4 on legislation.gov.uk before you plan a season. The figure in the class as it stands is the figure that matters, and relying on a number quoted in an old article is how enforcement cases start.

Two limits catch people out. The right does not apply where the land is a building, and it does not authorise development that would otherwise need permission, so engineering works to form an access or level a pitch fall outside it. It also sits alongside, not instead of, the caravan site licensing regime.

Counting the days and what a day means

Days are counted per calendar year and per planning unit. If your holding is one planning unit, using the top field for 20 days and the bottom field for another 20 does not give you 40 days. It gives you a breach.

• A day on which the land is used at all counts as a full day.
• Days used for different temporary purposes are added together, not counted separately.
• The count resets on 1 January, which is why bank holiday weekends in spring and the August peak have to be budgeted across the year.
• Keep a dated log of use, with photographs. If enforcement follows, the burden of showing the use was within the allowance falls on you.

That record keeping is dull and it is the single most useful thing you can do. Councils rarely have evidence of the exact number of days used, and a landowner with a contemporaneous log is in a far stronger position than one relying on memory.

Site licensing and exemption certificates

Planning is only half of it. Using land as a caravan site normally requires a site licence from the council under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, and a licence can only be issued to someone with planning permission for that use.

Schedule 1 to that Act sets out exemptions, including limited use by a small number of caravans for short periods and use of land certified by an exempted organisation. Certificated locations and certificated sites run by exempted camping and caravanning organisations operate under those provisions, with their own limits on numbers and duration.

Tented camping is licensed separately, under public health legislation, again with an exemption for short periods. The practical point is that three regimes run in parallel: planning, caravan site licensing and camping site licensing. Satisfying one does not satisfy the others.

When a temporary campsite becomes a material change of use

The moment the use stops being temporary in substance, it becomes a material change of use of the land, and permission is needed. Councils look for a familiar set of indicators.

A seasonal operation that runs for four months every year is not a temporary use, however carefully the days are counted, because the character of the land has changed. That is the judgement a planning enforcement officer will make, and it is a judgement about the whole picture rather than a single feature.

Access, drainage and washing facilities

Even inside the allowance, the practicalities matter, and they are what the parish notices first.

Access is usually the pinch point. A field gate designed for a tractor is not designed for a stream of cars towing trailers, and a visibility splay that suits agricultural use may not suit tourist traffic. Where you widen the access or form a new one, that is development in its own right.

Foul drainage from portable toilets must go to a licensed disposal point, and grey water from washing up cannot simply be tipped into a ditch. Potable water needs a source you can evidence. On a temporary site, hired welfare units with tanked waste are usually the cleanest answer, both practically and in planning terms.

Applying for a permanent campsite instead

If the business works, apply. A permanent site gives you certainty, allows proper facilities and removes the annual anxiety about day counting.

The application will need a Planning Statement addressing rural tourism policy in the adopted local plan, a landscape assessment where the site is prominent or falls within a designated landscape, a drainage strategy for foul and surface water, an ecology appraisal, and transport information on access and parking. Where the site sits in open countryside, the argument is about supporting the rural economy while respecting landscape character, which is the same balance discussed in our guides to glamping sites and to farm shops and the diversification test.

Temporary permission is a useful middle route. A permission for three or five years lets the council test the effects, and a clean record of operation is strong evidence when you apply to make it permanent.

Enforcement risk of running past the allowance

Exceeding the allowance is a breach of planning control. The council can serve a planning contravention notice requiring information, then an enforcement notice requiring the use to cease and structures to be removed, with a right of appeal. Breach of an enforcement notice is a criminal offence.

Time limits for enforcement against a change of use were extended by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, so do not rely on older guidance about immunity periods. Check the current position before assuming an established use is beyond challenge.

The reputational side matters too. A rural campsite that generates complaints about noise, lighting and traffic in its unauthorised phase will meet those objections again when it applies for permission, and the parish will remember.

PlanScope drafts the supporting documents around your site and flags what still needs confirming, and the full list of report types shows what a permanent tourism application usually requires.

This is general guidance, not 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.