Pharmacies and their position within Class E

A community pharmacy in England sits in Class E, and the pharmacy use class question usually turns out to be narrower than occupiers expect. Since 1 September 2020 the retail sale of goods and the provision of medical or health services have both been inside Class E, so a former shop, bank branch or optician's unit can be taken on and run as a pharmacy without a change of use application in most cases. What does need checking is different: a condition on the original permission tying the unit to a narrower use, a unit that was never in a class at all, and the physical works you want to carry out.

Which limb of Class E a pharmacy occupies

Class E of the Schedule to the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987, as amended by the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020, is divided into limbs from E(a) to E(g). A pharmacy usually straddles three of them, which is fine, because movement between limbs of the same class is not development at all.

The practical consequence is set out in article 3(1) of the Order. Where land or a building is used for a purpose in one of the classes, using it for any other purpose in the same class is not taken to involve development. No permission, no prior approval, no fee.

Retail sale against the provision of health services

Before September 2020 the distinction mattered a great deal. A pharmacy was a Class A1 shop, a doctor's surgery or health centre was Class D1, and moving between the two needed permission. Councils used that boundary to protect shopping frontages, and appeal decisions turned on whether a unit's activity was retail in character or clinical.

That boundary has gone within Class E. A shop can become a health service, a health service can add retail floor, and the mix can shift over time without the planning system being engaged. If you are working out where a particular offer falls, the Class E health boundary between opticians and pharmacies is the closest comparison, because both combine dispensing against a prescription with retail sale of related goods.

One live question deserves a flag. Class F2(a) covers a shop selling essential goods, including food, where the premises do not exceed 280 m² and there is no other such facility within 1,000 metres. A small village pharmacy can look like that description. If it is in F2 rather than E, the protection works the other way round, because a later change from F2 to E is development and the local planning authority gets a say. Where a rural unit is close to that description, it is worth asking the authority in writing which class it considers the premises to be in before you commit to a lease.

Where a condition still bites

Article 4 directions do not help a council here, because a direction withdraws rights granted by the General Permitted Development Order and movement within a class was never a permitted development right. It is not development, so there is nothing to withdraw.

Conditions are a different matter. A permission granted in 2004 for a parade of units might restrict a unit to "use as a shop within Class A1 of the Use Classes Order 1987 and for no other purpose". That wording survives the 2020 amendments and continues to limit the use, even though the class it names no longer exists. Read the whole permission, including the reason given for the condition, and check whether the restriction was aimed at retail frontage, at hours, or at something else entirely. If it blocks what you want to do, the route is an application under section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to vary or remove it, supported by a short Planning Statement that addresses the original reason.

Leases carry their own use restrictions. Those are private contract terms and a planning consent does not override them.

Consultation rooms and the space behind the counter

Fitting out a consultation room, extending the dispensary or subdividing the back of the shop is internal work. Internal alterations to a building that is not listed are generally not development under section 55 of the 1990 Act, since section 55(2)(a) excludes works of maintenance, improvement or other alteration that affect only the interior.

That leaves the things planning does control:

• Any alteration to the external appearance of the building, including a new door, a ramp, a rear fire exit or the loss of a window.
• Plant fixed outside, typically a condenser for the medicines fridge or for air conditioning to hold the dispensary within its temperature range.
• New or altered signage.

Plant is where most pharmacy applications actually run into trouble. A condenser on a rear wall below a flat above will draw an environmental health consultation, and the answer is a short Noise Impact Assessment setting the rating level against the background sound level at the nearest window, in the way BS 4142:2014+A1:2019 describes. Get the unit specified and located before the application rather than after a refusal.

Storage, security and waste

Controlled drugs have to be held in a cabinet meeting the specification in the Misuse of Drugs (Safe Custody) Regulations 1973. That is not a planning matter, but it has a planning consequence: the cabinet has to be fixed to a solid structural wall or floor, which constrains where the dispensary can sit and sometimes forces a layout that pushes plant to the front of the building instead of the back.

Waste is similar. A pharmacy generates patient-returned medicines, denatured controlled drugs and sharps, all of which need a lockable internal or external store away from the public area and accessible to a collection vehicle. Councils rarely condition this on a fit-out, but they do ask about it where an application involves a new unit or a shopfront change, and a bin store shown on a drawing is easier than a bin store argued about later. A Waste Management Strategy is proportionate on a larger unit or a new-build parade, not on a single fit-out.

Shopfront, access and signage

Most refusals of pharmacy applications are refusals of shopfront design, not of use. In a conservation area, an aluminium frame, internally illuminated box signs and solid roller shutters across the glazing will each be resisted, and a green cross sign projecting from the fascia counts as an advertisement in its own right.

Advertisements are consented separately under the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007. Some classes of sign benefit from deemed consent, some need express consent, and illuminated signs on a listed building or in a conservation area routinely need an application. Deal with the shopfront and the signs as one submission where you can, because a council that has already approved the frame will be readier to accept the fascia.

Level access matters too. Section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 duty to make reasonable adjustments sits outside planning, but a ramp or a re-graded threshold is an external alteration and needs to be drawn.

Illustrative example

A pharmacist takes a 95 m² unit in a suburban parade that was last used as a building society branch. The unit is in Class E, so occupation as a pharmacy needs no change of use application. The permission for the parade carries no use condition. The work needed is a new shopfront with a wider door, a rear condenser for the dispensary cooling, and two fascia signs. One planning application covers the shopfront and the condenser, with a short noise assessment for the condenser, and a separate advertisement consent application covers the signs. This example is illustrative and the position on any real site depends on the permission history for that unit.

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 section 192 of the 1990 Act is the only formal way to confirm that a use or an operation is lawful.

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