Getting permission for a winery or cider press building

Growing the fruit is agriculture. Pressing it, fermenting it and bottling it usually is not, and that single distinction decides how winery planning permission has to be obtained. A building for a press, tanks and a bottling line is normally a processing building rather than an agricultural one, so the permitted development rights in Part 6 are the wrong tool, and the application turns on rural policy, effluent, waste and harvest traffic instead.

Is pressing agriculture or something else

Section 336(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 defines agriculture to include horticulture and fruit growing. Planting a vineyard or an orchard, cultivating it and harvesting it all sit comfortably inside that definition.

Processing the crop is a different activity. The orthodox position is that turning fruit into a product for sale is manufacturing, and the question for the authority is whether the processing is ancillary to the agricultural use of the holding or has become a use in its own right. A small press handling only the holding's own fruit, for a few weeks a year, with no bought-in produce and no public access, is at the ancillary end. A year-round operation buying grapes or apples from other growers, blending, bottling under contract and selling to the trade is a processing business that happens to sit on a farm.

Where the answer falls matters more than it sounds. An ancillary use may need no separate consent beyond the building itself. A separate use needs permission for the change of use as well, and the authority will look at it as rural economic development with everything that follows on scale, traffic and landscape.

Be honest about the business plan in the Planning Statement. The volumes, the proportion of bought-in fruit, the months of operation and whether there will be contract pressing for neighbours are the facts that determine the answer, and an application that hides the growth plan gets conditions that strangle it.

Why Part 6 is the wrong route

Part 6 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 permits buildings and engineering operations on agricultural units, with Class A applying to units of five hectares or more. The limits are familiar: a ground area of no more than 1,000 m², height restricted, a set-back from the metalled part of a classified road, no dwellings, and a prior notification procedure under which the authority can require approval of siting, design and external appearance.

The condition that defeats a press house is the purpose test. Development is only permitted where it is reasonably necessary for the purposes of agriculture within the unit. A building housing a press, fermentation tanks, a chiller and a bottling line is for processing, and relying on Part 6 for it is a gamble.

The pattern that causes real damage is a building erected under Part 6 as a general purpose agricultural store and then fitted out as a winery. That is a material change of use of the building, it is enforceable, and the owner has by then spent the money. Where the use is uncertain, apply for a lawful development certificate for proposed use or development, or simply apply for planning permission and get a decision you can rely on.

Trade effluent from pressing and washing

This is the technical issue that catches new producers, and it arrives in the first harvest.

Winery and cidery effluent is strong and seasonal. Press washings, tank cleaning, floor washdown and bottling line rinse water carry a high organic load concentrated into a few weeks. Discharging it to a public sewer requires the consent of the sewerage undertaker under the Water Industry Act 1991, and the undertaker will set limits on volume, rate, strength and temperature, with charges to match. Discharging to a watercourse or to ground requires an environmental permit from the Environment Agency.

Neither consent is a planning permission, and neither is granted automatically. Plan for all three in parallel.

Off-mains rural sites usually end up with balancing storage and on-site treatment, which needs land, a bund and a management regime. Show it on the site plan. An application that leaves effluent to a condition will get one, and the condition may be impossible to discharge.

Pomace, marc and the waste question

Pressing leaves a large volume of solid residue. It is a waste, it attracts the duty of care under the waste regulations, and it smells as it breaks down.

Spreading it on the holding as a soil improver is common and can be lawful, though it needs either an environmental permit or the benefit of an exemption, and the deployment rules on rates and storage have to be followed. Composting on site is also possible with the same qualification. The planning dimension is where the heap goes, how far it is from the nearest dwelling and for how long it sits there.

Where there is a sensitive receptor within a few hundred metres, expect to be asked for an Odour Assessment, and councils normally expect a suitably qualified author for that work. The simplest mitigation is location: a residue pad on the far side of the building, screened, with a short storage period and a defined removal route, avoids most of the argument.

Tasting rooms and where retail policy bites

A tasting room is where the money is and where the planning case gets harder. Selling the holding's own produce from the holding is usually accepted as part of the rural enterprise, and national policy supports the diversification of agricultural businesses and sustainable rural tourism.

Scale changes the character. A tasting counter inside the press building is one thing. A 120 seat restaurant, a shop stocking bought-in goods, a wedding licence and coach parking is a leisure and retail destination in the countryside, and it attracts the full weight of rural, landscape and transport policy. Where a shop sells a material quantity of goods not produced on the holding, retail policy including sequential considerations can be engaged.

Seasonal events bring their own questions, and the temporary use rights that cover a few days a year are the same ones discussed in using a field for camping through the summer. Licensing for alcohol sales and consumption runs separately under the Licensing Act 2003 and is not a planning matter, though the authority will ask about hours.

Access, harvest peaks and bottling deliveries

Harvest is three to six weeks of concentrated movement: trailers in from the fields, fruit in from other growers if you are buying, and tankers or pallet lorries out. The rest of the year is quiet. Assessing the access on an annual average will produce a figure the highway officer rejects.

Set out the peak week honestly in a Transport Statement, with vehicle types, movements per day and the swept path for the largest vehicle on the access. Where the lane is single track, the realistic outcome is a passing bay, a visibility improvement or a routing agreement, and it is better to offer one than to be refused on highway grounds.

Conditions tying the building to the holding

Authorities use conditions to hold the balance they struck, and the common ones are predictable. Restriction of the building to processing fruit grown on the holding, or a stated maximum proportion of bought-in fruit. A cap on the floorspace used for retail or tasting. Hours of operation, separately for harvest and for the rest of the year. Approval of an effluent and residue management scheme before first use. Removal of permitted development rights so the building cannot later be extended or converted.

Negotiate the bought-in proportion rather than accepting a nil figure. A condition permitting a stated share of bought-in fruit gives the business room to grow and gives the authority the control it wants, and it is far easier to agree before determination than to vary afterwards.

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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