Using Part 4 temporary rights for a pop-up in a vacant unit

If you want to put a pop-up into a vacant unit for a few weeks, Part 4 of Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 may let you do it without a planning application at all. Class B of that Part grants permission for the temporary use of land for any purpose for a limited number of days in a calendar year, and a separate class allows certain buildings and land to switch temporarily between specified uses for a set period. Temporary use vacant unit permitted development is a real route, and it is also narrower than most landlords assume.

The two things that decide whether it works for you are the identity of the proposed use and the counting of the period. Get either wrong and you are operating without permission, which is an enforcement problem rather than a planning one.

What the temporary use classes permit

Part 4 contains several distinct grants, and they do different jobs.

Class B permits the use of any land for any purpose for not more than 28 days in total in any calendar year, with the moveable structures needed for that use. It is the class behind car boot sales, seasonal markets and one-off events. The allowance drops to 14 days for a market or for motor car and motorcycle racing. Because it applies to land rather than buildings, its usefulness for an indoor pop-up in a shop unit is limited.

The class that matters for vacant premises is the temporary flexible use right, which permits a building and any land within its curtilage to be used for a stated range of commercial, business and service purposes for a continuous period, subject to conditions. The permitted period and the list of qualifying uses are set out in the Order itself, and both have been amended more than once since 2015. Read the current consolidated text on legislation.gov.uk before you rely on it, because the version circulating in agents' notes is often out of date.

A third grant covers temporary use for filming, and another covers development by local authorities for emergency purposes. Neither helps a commercial tenant.

The time limits and how the days are counted

Counting is where claims fail. Three rules do the damage.

The period runs in a calendar year, not a rolling twelve months, and not a financial year. Days used in November and December come out of one allowance and January comes out of the next.

A part day counts as a day. A Saturday market from 9am to 1pm uses a whole day of the allowance.

The allowance attaches to the land, not to the operator. If the previous tenant ran 20 days of events on the same unit earlier in the year, you have eight left. There is no public register of this, which means due diligence is a question to the landlord in writing, and ideally a warranty in the licence.

For the flexible use right, the period is continuous from the date the use begins, and it cannot be paused and restarted to extend the total. Ancillary works to fit out the unit are a separate question: internal works usually fall outside the definition of development in section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, but a new shopfront, external flue, air conditioning unit or illuminated sign is likely to need permission or advertisement consent in its own right.

Uses that are excluded

The temporary rights do not cover everything, and the exclusions are deliberate.

Article 4 directions are the most common trap in town centres and conservation areas. Councils in historic centres have withdrawn change of use rights to protect the character of a frontage or a particular retail function, and the direction will usually be mapped on the council's website and on planning.data.gov.uk. A pop-up that would be lawful on one side of a street can be unlawful on the other.

Conditions that come with the right

Permitted development is never unconditional. The temporary rights carry conditions on the face of the Order, and breaching one removes the permission retrospectively, which is the worst of both worlds.

Expect conditions requiring that the building was lawfully in a qualifying use immediately before the change, that any moveable structures are removed at the end of the period, that the land is reinstated, and in some cases that the council is notified before the use begins. Where a notification is required, send it and keep the acknowledgement. An unnotified use is not a technicality.

Noise, hours and servicing are not conditioned by the Order, which means the controls that bite instead are environmental protection powers and the licensing regime. A pop-up bar that triggers statutory nuisance complaints under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 can be shut down by the environmental health team whether or not the planning position is sound. Where plant or amplified music is involved, a Noise Impact Assessment following BS 4142 methodology is the evidence base that answers the officer before the complaint arrives.

Reverting to the previous lawful use

The attraction of the temporary route is that the underlying lawful use is preserved. When the permitted period ends, the unit reverts to what it lawfully was before, and no application is needed to go back.

That only holds if the previous use was itself lawful and is properly evidenced. Where a unit has been empty for years and the last use is unclear, the temporary right may have nothing to revert to, and the whole structure of the claim becomes shaky. Documentary evidence is the answer: rating records, old leases, invoices, photographs, the planning history on the council's register. A Lawful Development Certificate under section 191 of the 1990 Act is the only formal way to confirm that an existing use is lawful, and it is worth the fee where a longer-term conversion might follow. Where the unit's history is contested, our note on cash and carry to trade counter and the retail tests shows how the same evidence is weighed.

Keep a contemporaneous record while you operate: dates of use with start and finish times, photographs of any moveable structures in place, the notification and its acknowledgement, and the removal and reinstatement at the end. If an enforcement officer asks, the burden of showing the development was permitted sits with you.

When a full application is still the right call

The temporary route is the wrong tool in three situations.

If the trading model needs more than the permitted period to prove itself, applying for a temporary planning permission with an expiry condition gives you a longer run and a documented planning history, which helps when you later apply for permanence. Councils are often receptive to an 18-month or three-year temporary consent in a struggling parade.

If the use is excluded, applying is the only route. A hot food takeaway, a late licence or a venue with external extraction needs its merits tested, usually with a Ventilation and Extraction Statement and, where the unit sits near housing, acoustic evidence. Our guide to indoor golf and simulator venues in vacant retail works through the same questions for a leisure use.

And if the floorspace or the trip generation is large enough to engage retail or transport policy, the flexible route does not avoid the assessment. A Transport Statement may still be requested on validation.

A short, honest answer to the question most landlords ask: for a three-week Christmas pop-up in a previously occupied shop, Part 4 usually works, provided you check the Article 4 position and the days already used on the unit. For anything with a kitchen extract or a bar, it does not.

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This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional 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.