Farm shops: agricultural use, Class E or a mixed use

Selling your own produce from your own holding is normally part of the agricultural use and needs no planning permission. Selling someone else's produce alongside it is retail, and retail is a different use. The farm shop question is almost always about where that line sits on a particular holding, in a particular year, with a particular mix of stock.

Section 55(2)(e) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 puts the use of land for agriculture outside the definition of development. The courts have long accepted that selling produce from the holding can be incidental to that agricultural use. What the section does not do is protect a shop that has quietly become a village grocer.

Sales of your own produce as part of the agricultural operation

A farm gate stall selling eggs, potatoes and cut flowers from the holding is agriculture continuing by another means. No permission is needed, no change of use has occurred, and the activity can grow somewhat without changing that analysis.

The protection attaches to produce from the holding, which means the land in the same agricultural unit. Produce from a neighbouring farm you also own may qualify if the two are farmed as one unit. Produce bought from a wholesaler does not.

The building matters as well as the goods. Where sales happen from an existing agricultural building occupied with the land, the position is straightforward. Where a new building is put up for the purpose, the building itself may be development even if the use is not, and agricultural permitted development rights under Part 6 of the GPDO come with their own conditions and prior approval requirements. The point at which an agricultural building stops having an agricultural use is worth understanding before you convert anything.

Where bought-in goods change the position

Once bought-in goods appear, two uses are running in the same place: an agricultural use and a retail use. Planning law then asks whether the retail element is ancillary to the agricultural use or has become a use in its own right.

The indicators officers weigh:

• The proportion of turnover derived from bought-in goods
• The proportion of floor area and shelf space given to them
• Whether the shop is marketed to the general public rather than to people already visiting the farm
• Opening hours, particularly whether the shop opens when no farming activity takes place
• Staff employed solely in the shop
• Deliveries arriving from wholesalers rather than departing with produce
• Car parking provided for customers and signage on the highway

No single figure decides it. A rule of thumb circulating in the sector puts the tipping point somewhere around a quarter to a third of turnover from bought-in goods, but that is convention rather than law, and a shop at 20 per cent with a car park, a till system and Sunday opening will not be saved by the percentage.

The tipping point into retail

When the retail element becomes the primary use, a material change of use has occurred and planning permission is needed. The resulting use is normally Class E(a), retail sale of goods to visiting members of the public, or a mixed use combining agriculture and retail that sits outside the use classes altogether.

That distinction has practical consequences. A unit wholly within Class E can move to other Class E uses without permission, so a farm shop that has become a Class E retail unit could in principle become a café, an office or a nursery. A mixed agricultural and retail use has no such flexibility, because it is not within a class at all.

Which of the two you end up with depends on the facts and on how the permission is drafted. Ask for the description of development to be written deliberately rather than accepting a generic phrase, because the description shapes what you can do next.

Cafés, kitchens and mixed operations

Add a café and you add another layer. Sale of food and drink for consumption on the premises sits at Class E(b), so a shop and café together can both be Class E uses, but preparing hot food for takeaway is sui generis and outside the class.

The practical consequences arrive through environmental health rather than use class. A commercial kitchen needs extraction, and extraction in a rural building with neighbours needs designing and justifying. A Ventilation and Extraction Statement covering the duct route, termination height, odour control and noise from the fan is the document councils ask for, and it is easier to provide before installation than after a complaint.

Seating, whether indoor or outdoor, also changes the trip profile and the hours of activity, which brings the highway authority into the conversation.

Highways, parking and amenity consequences

A successful farm shop is a traffic generator on a road designed for tractors. Expect the highway authority to ask about visibility at the access, the capacity of any passing places, parking provision on site including coach or delivery vehicle space, and whether customers will turn in the road.

A short Transport Statement dealing with those points, with a swept path drawing for the largest expected delivery vehicle, answers most of it. Where the access is onto a classified road, the bar rises considerably.

Amenity issues follow the same pattern: lighting to the car park, hours of deliveries, refuse storage and the noise of refrigeration plant. None of them is difficult. All of them are easier to design than to retrofit after a condition is imposed.

Conditions restricting the goods sold

Where permission is granted for a farm shop, authorities frequently impose conditions tying the use to the holding. Common forms include limiting the proportion of goods not produced on the holding, restricting the floor area given to bought-in goods, tying the shop's occupation to the agricultural unit, or restricting opening hours.

These conditions are enforceable and they are checked. A condition limiting bought-in goods to a stated proportion requires records capable of demonstrating compliance, which in practice means till data categorised at the point of sale.

Before accepting such a condition, think about the business five years out. A condition that suits a seasonal produce stall can strangle a shop that grows. Where the condition looks unworkable, negotiate the wording at application stage rather than applying to vary it later under section 73.

Evidence of the turnover split

Whoever asserts that a shop remains ancillary has to be able to show it. Keep categorised till records separating produce from the holding, bought-in goods and prepared food. Keep supplier invoices. Keep a plan showing the floor area given to each category, updated when the layout changes.

That evidence does two jobs: it supports the lawful use position if an enforcement query arrives, and it forms the factual base of any application or certificate of lawfulness. A Planning Statement setting out the split, the history and the policy position is the core of either submission.

This is general guidance rather than legal advice, and whether a farm shop remains ancillary to agriculture turns on the facts of each holding, so check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

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