Mobile catering on a private pitch: use and limits

Mobile catering pitch planning turns on the use of the land, not on the trailer. A catering unit that stays a vehicle is rarely a building in planning terms, so there is usually no operational development to worry about. What there is instead is a change of use of the land to a hot food use, which is sui generis since the 2020 amendments to the Use Classes Order took hot food takeaways out of the class system. Stationing a burger trailer in a field, a yard or a layby for anything more than occasional days needs planning permission for that change of use.

The confusion arises because nobody is building anything. Section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 catches the use regardless.

Whether the trailer itself is development

Three tests decide whether a structure is a building for planning purposes: size, permanence and degree of physical attachment. A towable trailer on inflated tyres that leaves the site at the end of the week fails all three and remains a chattel.

Change those facts and the answer changes. A unit set on blocks with the wheels removed, connected to mains services, with decking and a canopy built around it, has become a structure with a degree of permanence, and at that point there is operational development as well as a change of use. The same applies to anything you build around the pitch: a serving hatch canopy, a seating deck, a bin enclosure or a hardstanding are all operations in their own right.

So keep the unit mobile if you want the simpler analysis, and expect the officer to look at the photographs for blocks, skirting and service connections.

The 28 day temporary use allowance

Part 4 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 allows the temporary use of land for any purpose for not more than 28 days in total in any calendar year, with a lower sub-limit of 14 days for holding a market. That is the allowance most pitch operators rely on, and it is narrower than people assume.

Four limits matter.

It is 28 days in total, not 28 days per use, and every day the land is used counts whether or not you trade all day. It does not apply where the land is a building or lies within the curtilage of a building, which rules out a great many pub car parks, yards and forecourts. It does not authorise any building or structure beyond what the class permits. And the days are counted per calendar year, so a season that straddles the new year gets two allowances and a summer-only operation gets one.

Check the current text of Part 4 before relying on a day count. The allowance was temporarily extended during the pandemic years and has since reverted, and the detail of the class has been amended more than once.

If you need certainty rather than a view, apply for a certificate of lawfulness of proposed use or development under section 192 of the 1990 Act. It is the only formal confirmation available, and a landlord or a funder will accept it where they will not accept an opinion.

Siting, access and where customers park

Highway officers object to mobile catering pitches more often than planning officers do, and the objection is usually about customers rather than about the unit.

The questions they ask are consistent. Where do customers park, and is that space on your land or on the verge. What are the visibility splays at the access in both directions, measured against the actual approach speed rather than the posted limit. Does the pitch generate turning movements across a busy carriageway. Is there a safe pedestrian route from the parking to the serving window that does not cross the vehicle route. And does the queue stand on your land or on the footway.

A layby pitch beside a fast rural road is the hardest case, because the parking is the layby and the layby is highway. Expect a highway objection unless you can show separate off-carriageway parking.

Put the answers on a site plan at a legible scale, with the unit position, parking spaces, the queue area, bin store, the access and the visibility splays all drawn and dimensioned. A transport statement is proportionate for anything beyond a very small operation, and for a small one a dimensioned plan with a short note on trip generation usually suffices.

Waste, water and sanitary provision

Officers treat these as amenity issues and they are the routine reasons for conditions.

Litter is the complaint councils receive. A pitch with no bins produces wrappers for 200 m downwind, and the planning answer is a bin provision commitment with a stated number of bins, a stated emptying frequency and a litter picking radius. Offer it rather than waiting for it, because a condition drafted by the authority will be stricter.

Commercial waste is subject to the duty of care under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which means a registered carrier and transfer notes. Used cooking oil has to go the same way and cannot go in the general bin. Say in the application who collects and how often.

Water and drainage need a stated arrangement. A unit needs a supply of wholesome water for food hygiene purposes and somewhere lawful for waste water to go, which is not the hedge. Tankered supply and removal is acceptable where there is no connection, provided the application says so.

Staff lavatory provision is a food hygiene and workplace requirement rather than a planning one, but an officer will ask about it, and a pitch with seating will attract questions about customer provision too. Answer briefly and factually.

Odour, noise and the generator

A unit frying food produces odour, and odour is assessed in the same framework as any other commercial kitchen. The relevant technical approach follows the Defra guidance on controlling odour and noise from commercial kitchen exhaust systems, which sets out risk-based filtration levels and discharge arrangements.

The complication for a mobile unit is discharge height. A fixed restaurant extracts at roof level, above the eaves, away from openable windows. A trailer extracts at about 3 m, straight at the first floor of anything nearby. So the siting distance to the nearest sensitive window does most of the work, and the filtration specification does the rest. Set both out in a ventilation and extraction statement if there is any residential receptor within reach.

The generator is the noise source officers pick up on, and the one operators are least prepared for. A diesel generator running from 11:00 to 23:00 at the edge of a village is a fixed industrial source for assessment purposes and gets assessed under BS 4142:2014+A1:2019, with character corrections for tonality that diesel plant usually attracts. Three fixes work: take a mains supply if one can be reached, use a battery and inverter arrangement for a low-load operation, or specify an enclosed low-noise set and site it behind the unit with the exhaust directed away. A noise impact assessment will be expected where dwellings are close.

Hours and seasonal operation

Hours are where the negotiation happens, and it is better to propose than to be told.

Supplying hot food or hot drink between 23:00 and 05:00 is late night refreshment and needs authorisation under the Licensing Act 2003, which is a separate regime from planning. A planning permission for a pitch that trades until midnight is of no use without the licence, and a licence is of no use without the permission.

Seasonal permissions are common and useful. A condition restricting operation to defined months, or to a stated number of days a year, gives the authority comfort and gives you a consent that is easier to obtain than an unrestricted one. Where a seasonal operation has run for several years under the temporary use allowance and now needs permanence, the pattern is similar to the one described for barn wedding venues moving from temporary use to a permanent change, and the evidence of established operation is useful rather than incriminating.

Ask for a temporary permission if a permanent one looks difficult. A three year consent that demonstrates the operation causes no harm is a far stronger basis for a renewal than a refused application is for an appeal.

What to submit for a permanent pitch

A pitch application that validates and gets determined without a request for information normally contains a location plan with the red line drawn around the whole operational area, a site plan at 1:200 or 1:500 showing the unit, parking, queueing, bins, visibility splays and the access, elevations or a manufacturer's drawing of the unit with dimensions, a short planning statement covering the use class position and the hours proposed, the extraction and odour details, the generator or power arrangement with a noise assessment where needed, and the waste and water arrangements.

Add a photograph of the actual unit. Officers assess mobile catering partly on appearance, and a tidy, well-maintained unit photographs better than it describes.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority, the licensing team and environmental health 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. You can enter the pitch postcode to see which reports the proposal is likely to need.