Permission for a street food market in a car park

A regular street food market on a car park needs planning permission, and the sensible route is a temporary permission for a fixed number of years rather than a permanent one. The 28 day temporary use allowance in Class B of Part 4 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 drops to 14 days a year where the use is the holding of a market, so a monthly event is already outside it by February.

Ask for three to five years. That gives you a trading record, and a record of no complaints is the strongest evidence you can bring to a later application for something permanent.

Temporary permissions and how long to ask for

Section 72 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 lets the authority grant permission for a limited period, with a condition requiring the use to stop and the land to be restored.

The trade-off is straightforward. A shorter period is easier to grant, because the officer can recommend approval knowing any problem has a defined end. A longer period gives you something to invest in. Three years is usually the sweet spot for a first application on a site with residential neighbours, and five where the surroundings are commercial.

Say in the application what will happen at the end: units removed, surfacing reinstated, services capped. Officers grant temporary permissions more readily when the restoration is described rather than implied.

One point that is easy to miss. A temporary permission does not create a fallback for a later permanent application, and the lawful use remains the car park. Do not build a business model that assumes renewal is automatic.

Whether the use is sui generis or mixed

A market with multiple independent traders does not sit neatly in any class of the Use Classes Order and is generally treated as sui generis. A single operator running food and drink from fixed units could fall within Class E(b), but that is rarely what a street food market is.

Why it matters: a sui generis use has no flexibility, so any later change needs a fresh permission. And where the car park use continues alongside the market, the honest description is a mixed use rather than a change of use, which affects how the condition restricting trading days is drafted.

Get the description right at the outset. A proposal described as "use of land for a street food market on Saturdays and Sundays, retaining use as a public car park at other times" gives the officer something precise to condition. A proposal described as "change of use to street food market" invites a condition you did not want.

Noise from customers and amplified sound

Customer noise is the issue that generates objections. It is also the one with the least technical literature, because a crowd outdoors does not behave like a plant item.

A Noise Impact Assessment should cover three sources separately: amplified music and public address, crowd noise with a stated assumed attendance, and fixed and mobile plant including generators and refrigeration. BS 4142 is the right method for the plant. For crowd and entertainment noise the acoustician should state the methodology they are using and why, and the Planning Practice Guidance on noise supplies the policy framework through the significant observed adverse effect level concept.

The agent of change principle in national policy matters here and runs against you. A new use introduced next to existing homes carries the burden of mitigation, not the residents.

Mitigation that officers accept: a closing time earlier than the licensed hours, amplified sound limited to background level with a noise limiter set and sealed, speakers directed away from residential facades, acoustic fencing on the exposed boundary, a single managed exit and a named duty manager contactable during trading. Offer a noise management plan for conditioning.

Cooking, extraction and odour from mobile units

Mobile units are the hard part of the odour case, because each one has its own extraction and none of it is ducted to height.

Expect a Ventilation/Extraction Statement and, where the surroundings are sensitive, an Odour Assessment. The content that persuades an environmental health officer covers the cooking processes proposed and their odour potential, the filtration on each unit including carbon where high-odour cooking is involved, the discharge height and direction relative to nearby windows, the separation distance to the nearest residential facade, and the operator obligations you will impose through the trader agreement.

Charcoal and solid fuel grilling is the one to think hardest about. It produces odour and particulate that filtration handles poorly, and in an Air Quality Management Area it will attract attention. If the pitch layout can put high-odour cooking on the far side of the site from homes, draw it that way.

LPG storage and safe cylinder handling is a separate regime, and the environmental health and fire authorities will both have a view.

Waste, litter and grease

Three streams, each with its own answer.

Trade waste from traders needs a commercial collection contract and a bin store sized for the peak day, not the average. Public litter from customers needs bins at the exits, a sweeping regime during and after trading, and a litter catchment that extends beyond the site boundary. Fats, oils and grease need sealed containers, a licensed collection and a stated prohibition on disposal to drains.

All of it sits under the duty of care in section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, with transfer notes retained. Put the arrangements in a site management plan and offer it for conditioning, because it answers an objection before it is made.

Loss of parking and the transport case

If the car park is public, the loss of spaces is a planning issue in its own right.

A Parking Survey covering the car park and surrounding streets on representative days establishes the existing occupancy and the available slack. Where the market runs at weekends and the car park peaks on weekdays, the survey usually makes your case for you. Where the car park serves a town centre on a Saturday, it will not, and the answer is a different site or a partial layout that keeps spaces available.

Also cover trader vehicle access and set-up movements, pedestrian routes through the site, cycle parking, and the servicing arrangement. A market with 20 traders arriving in vans within an hour is a traffic management exercise, and a simple arrival schedule in the application removes the objection.

Licensing and street trading alongside

Planning is one of at least three consents and the others do not follow from it.

A premises licence under the Licensing Act 2003 covers alcohol, late-night refreshment and regulated entertainment. Street trading consent or a market licence may be needed under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 where the authority has adopted the relevant provisions. Food businesses must register with the authority, and each trader needs their own registration and hygiene rating.

Apply for them in parallel. A planning permission with licensing hours that do not match is a common and avoidable problem, and it is worth checking what hours the licensing authority is likely to grant before you fix the hours in the planning application.

Timeline and reapplying before expiry

1. Pre-application advice, with environmental health engaged on odour and noise methodology.
2. Parking survey on representative days, outside school holidays.
3. Noise, odour and management plans drafted together so they are consistent.
4. Submit as a minor application and allow eight weeks plus an extension of time.
5. Run the market, log complaints and keep the monitoring records.
6. Apply for renewal or a permanent permission at least six months before expiry.

Step five is what makes step six work. The comparison with seasonal use of land, in the article on using a field for camping through the summer, shows how a clean compliance record changes the second application.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

Browse the report types a meanwhile use needs on PlanScope and draft the supporting documents in minutes.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.