Permission for a seasonal maize maze or farm attraction

A maize maze, a pumpkin field and a Christmas trail all sound like temporary uses, and the 28 day right in Part 4 Class B does cover the use itself. What it does not cover is the hardcore track to the field gate, the levelled parking area, the toilet block or the permanent catering unit, so farm attraction planning permission is usually needed for the infrastructure even where the activity is permitted. That is the distinction that decides whether a season runs smoothly or ends with an enforcement notice.

What the temporary use right actually covers

Part 4 Class B of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 permits the use of any land for any purpose for not more than 28 days in total in any calendar year, with a shorter allowance where the use is the holding of a market or motor sport. It also permits the provision on the land of any moveable structure for the purposes of that use.

So the maze, the trail, the ticket gazebo and a portable loo block are within the right, provided the day count holds and the structures really are moveable. The right does not apply to land within the curtilage of a building, which matters where the attraction runs from the farmyard rather than from a field.

Count the days honestly and across all uses of that land, because the allowance is cumulative. A field used for a car boot sale in June and a maze in October is spending from one budget. Where the season runs longer than 28 days, which most pumpkin and Christmas operations do once set-up and take-down are counted, you need planning permission for the use as well.

Field parking is the engineering problem

This is where most operations fall outside the right without realising it. Parking cars on grass is part of the temporary use. Preparing the ground so that cars can park on it in October is not.

Laying stone, geotextile and a grid, regrading a field entrance, installing a culvert or widening a gateway are all engineering operations or building works, and none of them is permitted by Class B. They need permission in their own right, and they are permanent development even if the use above them is seasonal.

The honest position for a working attraction is usually a planning application for the access and parking infrastructure, with the attraction use either kept inside the 28 days or permitted alongside. Trying to run a 40 day season on an unconsented stone car park is the pattern that attracts a complaint and then a notice.

Access, visibility and queueing onto the lane

Highway officers object to farm attractions on two grounds, and both are about the lane rather than the field.

Visibility at the access is the first. A field gate designed for a tractor twice a day has nothing like the sight lines needed for 300 car movements on a Saturday, and the fix is usually hedge setback, a splay and sometimes a short length of widening. All of that is development and much of it is on land you may not own.

Queueing is the second. Where ticketing happens at the entrance, cars stack on the carriageway, and a single stationary queue on a national speed limit road is the kind of hazard that produces a refusal. Move the ticketing inside the field, provide reservoir space for queued vehicles clear of the highway, and show it on the plan. Set the peak out properly in a Transport Statement using the days you actually trade rather than a seasonal average.

Toilets, catering and waste on a peak day

Welfare provision is sized by the busiest afternoon, not by the average. A half term Saturday with 1,200 visitors produces a foul load and a waste stream that a few portable units and a wheelie bin will not absorb.

Portable units serviced by tanker sit within the temporary use right. Anything plumbed in does not, and an off-mains site needs either a package treatment plant with a compliant discharge or a sealed tank with a tanker route, which is the territory of a Foul Sewage Assessment. Catering from a trailer is moveable. A timber food cabin on a slab is a building.

Noise, litter and the neighbours

Farm attractions generate complaints about things that have nothing to do with planning policy and everything to do with how the decision goes. Car doors and voices from 9am, amplified announcements, tractor and trailer rides past a cottage, litter in the hedge and mud on the lane are the five that recur.

Deal with them in the submission rather than in the committee. A management plan covering arrival routing, a litter sweep, wheel cleaning at the exit, no amplified sound outside a stated area and a named contact number costs little to write and it answers most objections. Councils will condition it anyway, so you may as well draft it.

Mud on the highway is worth particular attention, because it is the one issue that can bring a prosecution rather than a planning complaint.

Reinstating the land after the season

Where the use runs under the temporary right, the land has to return to its previous use at the end of it. That means structures off site, surfaces lifted and the field back in agricultural use.

Where permission is sought instead, the authority will often condition reinstatement at the end of each season, and it is worth specifying what that means. A condition requiring removal of all structures and surfaces within 14 days of the final trading day is manageable. One requiring the field to be returned to arable cropping by a fixed date in November may not be, depending on the rotation.

Keep a dated photographic record of the site before the season and after reinstatement. It settles arguments at no cost. The same discipline applies to any seasonal use of a field, as using a field for camping through the summer sets out.

Conditions on days, hours and numbers

Expect conditions limiting the trading season to stated dates, the hours of opening, the maximum number of visitors or vehicles per day, the area of the holding that may be used, the removal of structures at the end of the season, and approval of a management plan before first use.

Offer the numbers yourself, based on what you actually need and what the access can carry. An operator who proposes a season of 1 October to 5 November with stated hours and a daily vehicle cap usually gets something close to it. One who applies for an unlimited year-round attraction on a single track lane gets a refusal and starts again.

Set the business case out plainly in the Planning Statement, including the diversification argument, which national policy supports, and the relationship between the attraction and the farming operation. Browse the report types to see which supporting documents a seasonal attraction usually needs.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. A lawful development certificate is the only formal way to confirm that a use or works are lawful. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

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