Setting up a mobile catering unit on private land

A mobile catering unit planning question almost never turns on the vehicle. It turns on the land. Parking a trailer in a field and opening a hatch can be a material change of use of that land under section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and if it is, you need planning permission whether or not the unit has wheels and a towbar.

Three separate consents sit around this. Planning permission for the use of the land, street trading consent from the council where the pitch is on or beside a street, and food business registration before you serve anybody.

Whether stationing a unit is development at all

A van that drives to a pitch, trades for three hours and drives away is not obviously changing the use of the land. A trailer that stands on the same hardstanding every day, with a generator, a bin store, a picnic bench and a sign, plainly is.

Between those two sits most of the case law, and the courts have consistently looked at the use of the land rather than at the physical characteristics of the vehicle. The question is whether the character of the land's use has materially changed, not whether something has been built.

So the same trailer can be lawful on one pitch and unlawful on another. A catering unit in the corner of a working farmyard, serving the farm's own visitors, may be ancillary to the agricultural use. The same unit on an amenity verge beside a trunk road is a new use of that land.

Permanence, attachment and the planning unit

Four factors do most of the work in practice.

Permanence. How long the unit stays in place, whether it is removed outside trading hours, and whether it returns to the same spot. A unit that never moves reads as a building even when it has a chassis.

Attachment. Connections to mains water, foul drainage or a power supply, a tow hitch that has been removed, wheels that have been replaced with blocks, or decking built around the unit. Each of those moves the analysis towards operational development in its own right.

Ancillary works. Hardstanding laid for the pitch, a gravelled customer area, bollards, lighting columns, seating, bin stores and signage are all capable of being development separately from the catering use.

The planning unit. Where a pitch sits within a larger site already in a lawful use, the question is whether the catering has become a separate planning unit or remains ancillary to the main use. A catering trailer in a garden centre car park serving garden centre customers is a different case from the same trailer trading to passing traffic.

The parallel is close to the analysis in planning permission for a hand car wash, where an operation on open land becomes a use in its own right through exactly these steps.

The 28 day temporary use right and its limits

Class B of Part 4 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order permits the use of land for any purpose for not more than 28 days in total in any calendar year, together with the provision of moveable structures for that use. A shorter limit of 14 days applies to certain purposes, including markets.

The right is narrower than it sounds:

• the 28 days are cumulative across the calendar year and across all temporary uses of that land, not 28 days per event
• it does not apply to land that is a building or is within the curtilage of a building
• it permits moveable structures only, so permanent works fall outside it
• restrictions apply on land with certain designations
• the days are counted by the authority, and a trader keeping no record is in a poor position in an enforcement dispute

Used properly it supports events, festivals and seasonal trading. Used as cover for a five-day-a-week pitch it fails, because the day count runs out in February.

Keep a dated log of every trading day on the land from the first day. That single habit decides most disputes about Class B.

Highway safety, lay-bys and access

Where an application is needed, highway safety is usually the determining issue and the most common ground of refusal.

Officers look at visibility in both directions at the access, whether customers can pull in and out without conflicting movements, whether vehicles queue onto the carriageway, whether there is room to park clear of the highway, and whether the site encourages pedestrians to cross a fast road. A unit on a bend, on a sloping approach or near a junction is difficult to justify.

Lay-bys deserve a warning of their own. Most are highway land in the ownership of the highway authority or National Highways, and stationing a unit there without their agreement is unlawful regardless of planning. Permission from a farmer whose field adjoins the lay-by does not help.

Where an application is made, a short Transport Statement with visibility splays measured against recorded speeds, a parking layout and an estimate of customer movements answers most of the highway authority's questions before they are asked.

Street trading consent and food registration

Street trading consent under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 is a separate matter from planning. Councils designate streets as consent streets, licence streets or prohibited streets, and the definition of a street can extend to land adjoining a street to which the public has access. A private forecourt beside a road may therefore need consent.

Food business registration with the council is a third requirement, and it has to be done before trading starts. Registration is free and there is a minimum notice period, so leave time for it.

None of these three consents substitutes for another. A trader with street trading consent and a five star hygiene rating can still be served with an enforcement notice for an unlawful change of use.

Waste, water, welfare and extraction

An application that deals with the practical side properly tends to be recommended for approval. Councils want to see potable water provision, waste water containment and disposal, a trade waste contract, a customer bin with a collection arrangement, and staff welfare and toilet facilities within a reasonable distance.

Cooking odour matters where housing is nearby. A unit frying on a rural lay-by is a different proposition from the same unit on a residential street, and where the pitch is close to dwellings a Ventilation and Extraction Statement may be needed to describe the filtration and discharge arrangements.

How enforcement usually proceeds

Councils generally start informally. A visit, a letter asking the operator to explain the planning position, and often an invitation to apply. Many traders are surprised to learn that permission was ever needed.

If no application follows, the authority may issue an enforcement notice requiring the use to cease, with a compliance period and a right of appeal, and in urgent cases a temporary stop notice takes effect immediately. Enforcement time limits have been reformed by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, so the old assumption that a use becomes immune after a short period should be checked rather than relied on.

The better route is a planning application with a temporary permission sought for one or two seasons. It gives the authority a way to say yes, and it gives the trader a record of lawful trading to rely on when applying for a permanent consent. A Planning Statement setting out the pitch, the hours, the facilities and the highway evidence is usually all that is needed.

PlanScope drafts documents of this kind from your site details and flags what it cannot verify. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which documents your pitch is likely to need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. A Lawful Development Certificate is the only formal way to confirm that a use is lawful. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.