Open air markets, stalls and the use class position

Market stall planning permission turns on a point that surprises most organisers: an open air market is not in any class in the Use Classes Order, so there is no flexibility to fall back on. Using a car park, a field or a yard for a market is a change of use that needs planning permission, unless it fits inside the temporary use allowance in the General Permitted Development Order or the land already has permission for that use.

Two separate regimes then apply on top. Planning deals with the use of the land. Street trading consent, where the market is on or beside a highway, deals with the act of selling. Getting one does not give you the other, and the two are issued by different teams in the same council.

A market sits outside the use classes

The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987, as amended in 2020, puts most shops, cafes and offices into Class E and gives them freedom to move between those uses without permission. An open air market is not in Class E, or in F1 or F2, or in any other class. It is sui generis, which means every change to it and from it is capable of being a material change of use.

Two consequences follow. A Class E retail unit cannot simply become a market operating from its forecourt, because the forecourt use is a separate matter from the shop. And a market that has run on a site for years without permission is not protected by Class E flexibility; its position depends on immunity, which is a different argument entirely.

The first question to settle is whether the market is a material change of use at all. A single charity stall outside a church hall on a Saturday morning is not, in planning terms, the introduction of a market. Twelve stalls, a generator and 300 visitors on a weekly cycle is. Scale, frequency and permanence are what make the difference, and the national guidance on when permission is required is the starting point.

The temporary use route under Part 4 Class B

Class B of Part 4 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 permits the use of land for any purpose for a limited number of days in each calendar year, with a lower sub-limit that applies specifically to the holding of a market and to motor car and motorcycle racing. The sub-limit is half the general allowance. Those figures were increased by amendment in 2021 and the Order has been amended many times since 2015, so read the current consolidated text of Class B before you commit to a programme.

Three restrictions catch people out.

1. The right applies to land, not to a building, and not to land within the curtilage of a building. A market in a yard behind a shop is often inside that curtilage.
2. Days are counted per calendar year across all temporary uses of that land, so a market sharing the site with a car boot sale, a funfair or a filming day draws on the same allowance.
3. Authorities differ on whether set-up and take-down days count. Where the land is occupied by the operation, assume they do and check with your local planning authority.

Class B also carries exclusions for scheduled monuments and for certain uses on sites of special scientific interest. Keep a dated log of every day used, because an enforcement officer asking for one at the end of the season is a common sequence and the burden of showing you stayed inside the allowance falls on you.

Street trading consent is a separate permission

Schedule 4 to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 lets a council designate streets as prohibited, licence or consent streets, and in consent streets a trader needs the council's street trading consent. Markets established by the council itself may instead sit under its powers in the Food Act 1984, and some towns still have ancient market rights that restrict rival markets within a defined distance.

The practical point for an organiser is sequencing. Street trading consent is usually quicker and less costly to obtain than planning permission, which tempts people into trading first and applying later. That is the route to an enforcement notice, because the consent does not authorise the use of the land.

Alcohol sales, hot food after 11pm and regulated entertainment bring the Licensing Act 2003 into play as a third regime, through either a premises licence or temporary event notices.

Highway, access and pedestrian flow

Highway officers ask a narrow set of questions, and answering them in a short Transport Statement removes most of the friction. Where will visitors park, and what happens to the streets around the site when the car park is full of stalls. How do traders load and unload, at what time, and off the highway or on it. Can an emergency vehicle still reach the site. Is the pedestrian route from the nearest car park and bus stop usable when it is busy and wet.

Set out stall layout on a drawing with dimensioned aisles and a clear circulation route. Three metres is a reasonable minimum aisle for a stall market with pushchairs and wheelchairs, and the fire service will want a route kept clear. Obstruction of the highway is an offence in its own right under the Highways Act 1980, separately from planning.

Waste, litter and welfare

Markets generate packaging, food waste and cardboard in volumes that surprise first-time organisers, and litter in surrounding streets is the complaint that generates objection letters. Say who collects, how often, and under what contract, and include a litter picking commitment with a radius and a timescale.

Toilets are the other recurring gap. Where there are no public facilities within a short walk, temporary units need to be shown on the layout plan with their servicing arrangements. A food market also needs potable water and handwashing provision, which is an environmental health requirement rather than a planning one, though officers will ask.

Noise, odour and the conditions that follow

Generators, public address systems, early morning deliveries and the clatter of stall frames at 6am are the usual noise sources, and the nearest residential facade is the usual constraint. Where homes are close, a Noise Impact Assessment measuring the existing background level and predicting the market contribution is what allows hours to be agreed rather than imposed.

Hot food stalls bring odour. A mobile unit with a short flue discharging at head height next to a first floor window is the classic refusal, and a Ventilation and Extraction Statement showing discharge heights and locations is proportionate even for a temporary arrangement.

Expect conditions on the number of stalls, the days and hours of operation, the layout, the waste arrangements, generator use and amplified sound. Negotiate them rather than accepting a draft, because a condition limiting the market to one day a week is hard to vary later.

Permanent permission compared with the day limit route

The temporary use allowance is attractive because it costs nothing and needs no application. It is also a hard ceiling, and a market that succeeds will hit it. Once the operation wants a weekly cycle, the day limit route stops working and a full application for a sui generis use is the only option.

Apply for what you intend to run, with a stall count and hours that leave room to grow. The supporting Planning Statement should address the town centre policy case, the highway position, residential amenity and waste, and should be honest about the noise and odour sources rather than silent on them. Where the same site hosts different activities at different times, the timetabling question in alternating uses: one building, two timetabled uses will help before you draft the description of development.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority and its licensing team 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.