Part 4 Class A: site huts and temporary construction buildings

Site huts, welfare cabins, a site office, hoarding, a tower crane and a concrete batching plant are all capable of being permitted development under Schedule 2, Part 4, Class A of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015. The right is narrow in three ways that catch out contractors every year: the structures must be required temporarily in connection with building or engineering operations, they must go no further than the land where those operations happen or land immediately adjoining it, and the operations themselves must already have planning permission where permission is needed.

Get any of the three wrong and the compound is unauthorised development, whatever the programme says.

What Class A actually permits

The wording covers buildings, moveable structures, works, plant or machinery required temporarily in connection with, and for the duration of, operations being carried out on the land or on adjoining land. That is deliberately broad on the type of structure and deliberately tight on the purpose.

In practice it covers the standard construction compound: stacked cabins for site management and welfare, drying rooms, a canteen unit, secure stores, fuel bunds, hoarding and gates, site lighting columns, wheel wash, temporary haul roads, scaffolding, hoists, cranes, and plant such as a batching plant or a crushing rig used on the works themselves.

It does not cover anything whose purpose sits outside the operations. A marketing suite for selling completed homes, a sales cabin open to the public, a temporary retail unit, or a compound retained after practical completion to service a later phase are all doing something other than enabling the current building works. Those need their own permission, usually a temporary one.

Two further exclusions sit in the class itself. Mining operations are outside it. And the right does not apply where the operations need planning permission that has not been granted, which is the point contractors most often miss.

The consent has to exist first

Bringing the compound onto site before the permission is issued is a common sequencing error. If the scheme needs planning permission and permission has not been granted, Class A gives you nothing, because the operations it is tied to are not lawful yet. Enabling works, site clearance and a compound set up in the gap between committee resolution and decision notice all sit outside the right.

Where the operations do not need permission at all, the position is easier. A compound serving works that are themselves permitted development, or works that fall outside the definition of development in section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, can rely on Class A from the start.

The practical fix is dull and effective. Show the compound, hoarding line, crane position and site access on the application drawings, and describe them in the Planning Statement so that the officer sees the construction arrangements as part of the scheme rather than as a surprise afterwards.

Adjoining land means adjoining

Class A extends to land adjoining the site. Adjoining means sharing a boundary. It does not mean nearby, across the road, or two plots down the terrace.

This matters on tight urban sites where the natural compound location is a car park a hundred metres away. That compound is not permitted development, and the options are a temporary planning permission for the compound land, a licence from the highway authority for a street works area, or a compound squeezed onto the site itself.

Where the adjoining land is in different ownership, permitted development rights do not give you a right of entry. You still need the landowner's agreement and, on an application, the correct ownership certificate and any notice under section 66 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

The removal and reinstatement condition

Class A carries a condition rather than a time limit expressed in weeks. When the operations finish, the buildings, structures, works, plant and machinery must be removed, and the land reinstated to its condition before the development took place, unless a planning permission specifies another condition for the land.

Read that as an obligation on the developer that survives the main works. A compound left standing after completion is a breach of condition, and the local planning authority can serve a breach of condition notice, for which there is no appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.

The reinstatement duty also shapes what you should put in the compound. Piled hardstanding, a permanent surface water connection or a concrete slab you intend to keep are all difficult to square with a duty to return the land to its previous condition. If part of the compound is meant to stay, apply for it.

The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 extends enforcement time limits in England to ten years for all breaches. Commencement details should be verified against the current position before you rely on any time limit.

What Class A does not switch off

Permitted development for the compound does not remove other consents.

• Listed building consent is still needed for works to a listed building or for fixings into it, including hoarding ties and scaffold anchors.
• Advertisement consent is needed for graphics on hoarding beyond the limited deemed consent for site identification, and the rules differ in a conservation area.
• Tree Preservation Order consent, or the six week notice procedure in a conservation area, applies to any tree work needed to bring plant onto the site.
• Conditions on the planning permission take precedence. A pre-commencement condition requiring approval of a construction method statement, wheel washing details or a compound layout has to be discharged before the works it controls begin, and a condition can expressly remove Part 4 rights.
• An Article 4 direction can withdraw the class in a defined area, which some councils use in sensitive town centres.

Highway matters sit outside planning altogether. Skips, hoarding on the footway, scaffold licences, temporary traffic orders and crane oversail agreements come from the highway authority under the Highways Act 1980 and the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, on their own timescales.

Where the reports fit

Most councils control construction impacts through condition rather than through the permitted development right. On a minor scheme that means a short method statement. On a major scheme it means a document set, and the requirement usually appears in the officer's recommendation before you have a chance to shape it.

A Construction Traffic Management Plan covers routing, delivery hours, banksman arrangements, wheel washing and the swept paths that show a rigid vehicle can reach the compound gate. A Construction Management Plan is broader: working hours, noise and dust control referencing BS 5228, waste, site security, neighbour liaison and the compound layout itself.

Draft both against the compound you have actually designed. Officers notice when the routing plan shows a gate that does not exist on the site layout.

Illustrative example. A nine unit scheme on a former garage plot sets up cabins and hoarding on the adjoining paddock, both in the same ownership. That is within Class A while the houses are built. The developer then keeps the compound for a second phase on a site across the lane, and at that point the compound is neither on the operational land nor on land adjoining it, so it needs a temporary permission. This example is illustrative only.

Before the compound arrives

Run the same four checks every time. Is there an extant permission for the operations, or do they not need one? Is the compound on the site or on land sharing a boundary? Have the pre-commencement conditions that touch construction been discharged? And is there a written record of the pre-existing condition of the compound land, with dated photographs, for the reinstatement obligation later?

That last one costs an hour and settles most arguments at handover.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it, and remember that a lawful development certificate under section 191 or 192 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is the only formal way to confirm that works are lawful.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which construction stage reports your site is likely to need.

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