Getting permission for a caravan and boat storage yard

Parking caravans, motorhomes and boats on a field for money is a material change of use of the land, and it needs planning permission almost every time. There is no permitted development right that covers it. The application is judged as caravan storage yard planning: an open storage use in Class B8 terms, assessed on landscape impact, access and drainage rather than on any building you might put up.

Farmers reach for this because the income is steady, the capital cost is low and the demand is real in any county within an hour of a coast or a marina. The planning risk sits almost entirely in how the site looks from the lane and how the vehicles get in and out.

Change of use of land to open storage

Section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 makes a material change in the use of land development. Storing third-party caravans commercially on agricultural land is a change from agriculture to storage, and the fact that nothing is built does not soften that.

Storage or distribution sits in Class B8 of the Use Classes Order. Open storage on land is normally treated as a B8 use for policy purposes even where the class was written with buildings in mind. Two practical consequences follow. Your application should describe the development as change of use of land to the storage of caravans, boats and similar vehicles, with any hardstanding and fencing listed. And if you later want to store building materials or plant instead, that is a different character of use and may need a further permission.

Ancillary storage is the exception worth knowing. Keeping your own two caravans behind the barn, incidental to the farm, is not a separate use. Once you are advertising spaces and issuing invoices, the character of the use has changed.

Green Belt is where most refusals happen. National Green Belt policy treats most new development as inappropriate unless it preserves openness, and rows of stacked caravans do not. A site inside the Green Belt needs very special circumstances, and "the field is not much use for anything else" has never been enough.

Landscape and visual impact of stored units

Caravans are pale, boxy and roughly 2.6 metres tall. Twenty of them in a line read as a building from half a mile away, which is why officers treat the visual case as the main issue on any site outside a settlement.

The assessment that wins is specific. Identify the viewpoints that matter, which are usually the nearest public right of way, the lane frontage, and any dwelling with a direct outlook. Then show what a person standing there actually sees at eye level, with existing vegetation drawn at its winter density rather than its August density. Hedges are thinner in February and officers know it.

Siting beats screening. A yard tucked behind an existing farm building group, using the buildings as the backdrop, is far easier to defend than an open field with a new hedge promised around it. Where the site is prominent or falls within a National Landscape, a Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment prepared to the GLVIA3 method is worth the money, because it gives the case officer something to quote in the report.

Boat storage adds height. A cruiser on a trailer with a mast down can exceed 4 metres, and masts up push the figure well past that. Say where masted craft will stand and how high they will reach.

Surfacing, drainage and run-off

A compacted field surface turns to mud by November, and mud on the lane brings a highway objection within a season. Most schemes end up with a bound or partly bound surface, and that changes the drainage position.

Hard surfacing replaces infiltration with run-off. Councils expect the discharge rate after development to be no worse than the greenfield rate, managed on site. On a storage yard the usual answer is a permeable surface such as reinforced grass, cellular grid or clean crushed stone over a granular sub-base, which keeps infiltration and avoids a formal outfall.

Where a sealed surface is unavoidable, you need attenuation and, on a site handling vehicles with fuel tanks, an interceptor. A short Drainage Strategy covering surface type, infiltration testing, storage volume and the treatment train is normally enough for a yard of this size. Full engineered SuDS design belongs at the discharge of conditions stage.

Access, manoeuvring and lane capacity

The highway authority asks three questions: can a towing vehicle turn in and out safely, can it do so without reversing onto the carriageway, and is the visibility splay achievable within land you control.

Splays are the common failure. If the hedge that delivers your sightline sits on a neighbour's frontage, you cannot condition its maintenance, and the application fails on a point that has nothing to do with the yard itself. Check ownership before you draw anything.

Trip generation is usually modest and seasonal, peaking at Easter and again in late October. Say so plainly, with an estimate of movements per day at peak based on the number of pitches and a realistic turnover assumption, and label the assumption as illustrative. A Transport Statement is proportionate for most rural yards. Anything approaching a large commercial operation on a minor lane will attract a request for more.

Internal layout matters more than people expect. Show aisle widths that let a 4x4 and twin-axle caravan turn without shunting, a marked manoeuvring area, and a gate set back far enough that a waiting vehicle stands clear of the carriageway. Five metres of set-back is a common minimum, though your highway authority may want more.

Security fencing, lighting and cameras

Insurers push operators towards palisade fencing, floodlighting and cameras. Planning officers push back on all three in open countryside.

Fencing that reads as industrial is usually resisted on a rural frontage. Post and rail with a native hedge outside it, or a weldmesh panel in dark green behind planting, generally passes where 2.4 metre galvanised palisade does not.

Lighting is the issue that generates neighbour objections after consent. Design to the darkest environmental zone that fits the location, use full cut-off luminaires with zero upward light, mount them low, and control them so the yard is not lit all night. Passive infrared activation with a short run time is usually acceptable where continuous lighting is not. On a site near bat commuting routes or a watercourse, expect a condition requiring a lighting scheme, and a Lighting Assessment referencing the ILP obtrusive light guidance will answer it before it is asked.

Cameras raise no planning issue in themselves at this scale. Column-mounted cameras on tall poles do.

Conditions on numbers, height and seasonality

Expect a permission that is tightly conditioned. The conditions that recur:

1. A maximum number of units stored at any one time, tied to a numbered layout plan.
2. A maximum height, often expressed as a single tier with no stacking, and sometimes a lower limit for the row nearest a boundary.
3. Storage only, with no repair, servicing, sales, valeting or overnight occupation of the units.
4. Hours during which the site may be accessed, commonly excluding early mornings and Sundays.
5. A landscaping scheme with a five-year replacement clause.
6. Removal of the surfacing and reinstatement of the land if the use stops for more than a stated period.

Test each one against how you will actually trade. A no-Sunday-access condition is unworkable for a business whose customers collect on Sunday morning, and it is far easier to argue that point before the decision than to vary it afterwards. Ask for a temporary permission if the authority is nervous. Three years of clean operation is strong evidence when you apply for the permanent use.

Documents for a storage yard application

For a straightforward rural yard, the pack is short:

• location plan and site layout showing pitches, aisles, gates, fencing and planting
• existing and proposed levels where surfacing changes them
• a Planning Statement setting out the policy case, the Green Belt or landscape position and the conditions you would accept
• a landscape and visual appraisal, scaled to the sensitivity of the site
• a transport statement with a visibility splay drawing
• a drainage strategy
• an external lighting layout with isolux contours if lighting is proposed

Ecology is often overlooked. A field margin, a pond within 250 metres or a hedge to be removed for the access will each prompt a request for a preliminary ecological appraisal, and mandatory biodiversity net gain applies to most planning permissions, so budget for the metric even on a use that builds nothing.

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. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports a storage yard on your land is likely to need.