Planning permission for a glamping or caravan site

Glamping site planning permission turns on two regimes running side by side: planning permission for the change of use of the land, and a site licence under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 for anything that counts as a caravan. Tents are licensed differently again. Most refusals in this sector come from landscape impact and access rather than from the principle of rural tourism, which national policy supports.

Work out first what your units actually are in law, because that decides which of the three regimes you are in.

Permitted use of land for camping and its limits

Part 4 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order allows the temporary use of land for most purposes for a limited number of days in a calendar year, with camping among them. That right has been the subject of reform proposals, so check the current text of the Order rather than relying on a number you remember.

Separately, the 1960 Act contains exemptions from site licensing, including limited use by small numbers of caravans and use by members of exempted organisations on certified locations. Those exemptions relieve you of the licence, not of the need for planning permission where a material change of use has occurred.

The trap is intensification. Running a handful of units for a few weekends under a temporary right, then advertising, installing hardstandings, laying services and operating most of the year, is a material change of use. Councils treat the physical works as the evidence, because hardstandings, service runs and a new access are not temporary.

The site licence that runs alongside permission

A caravan site licence is issued by the district or unitary council. The important sequencing point is that the licence cannot be granted unless planning permission for the use is in force, and once permission exists the council is generally obliged to issue a licence, attaching conditions from the model standards.

Those standards deal with spacing between units, distances to boundaries and roads, fire points and firefighting equipment, water supply, refuse and site roads. The 2008 model standards for caravan sites in England are the reference document, and the spacing requirements in particular affect how many units fit on your field. Design the layout to the standards from the start, because a planning permission for a density the licence cannot accommodate is worthless.

Tents are outside the caravan regime. Camping sites for tents are licensed under separate public health legislation, and the council's environmental health team administers that.

Timber cabins on foundations are neither. A structure that cannot be moved and is built in position is a building, needing planning permission as operational development, with no licence and with building regulations approval.

Landscape and visual impact in open countryside

This is where applications are won or lost. A field of pods on a skyline in a National Landscape reads very differently from six units tucked into an existing hedged enclosure.

Submit photographs from the public vantage points that matter: the nearest public rights of way, the road approaches and any viewpoint above the site. Show the units in their proposed positions, with honest heights, and explain the colour and material choices. Muted dark greens, greys and natural timber disappear. White fibreglass does not.

In a designated landscape, a formal landscape and visual appraisal is proportionate. Elsewhere, a short appraisal within the design and access statement usually suffices, provided it deals with lighting. External lighting on a rural site is a common reason for objection, and a dark site with low-level bollard lighting on the paths is an easier case than a lit one.

Access, internal roads and parking

The highway authority wants visibility splays measured to the current standard for the road's speed, a bound surface for the first few metres of the access so material does not track onto the carriageway, and somewhere for vehicles to pass on a single-width track.

Touring caravans need turning space. Show swept paths for a car towing a caravan entering, turning and leaving in forward gear, and provide one parking space per unit plus visitor spaces, positioned so cars do not park on the internal road.

Internal roads should be permeable where possible, which helps the drainage case. Gravel with a cellular confinement system reads better in the countryside than tarmac and drains better too.

Foul drainage, water and waste

Almost every rural site is off mains drainage, so the foul drainage strategy is part of the application rather than an afterthought.

The options are a connection to the public sewer where one is within reach, a package treatment plant discharging to a watercourse or to ground under the Environment Agency's general binding rules, or a permit where the rules cannot be met. The rules set limits on volume, on the condition of the receiving environment and on proximity to sources, so check them against your proposed discharge before sizing the plant.

Chemical toilet disposal points for touring units, a potable water supply with adequate pressure and flow, and refuse and recycling storage all need to be shown on the layout. Environmental health will comment on all three.

Seasonal and occupancy conditions

Expect conditions, and read them before you accept the permission.

1. Holiday occupancy only, with no unit used as a person's sole or main residence.
2. A register of occupiers, kept and made available to the council on request.
3. A closed season, often eight to ten weeks in winter, on sites where landscape impact or flood risk justifies it.
4. Units restricted to the number, type and positions shown on the approved layout.
5. No permanent structures, decking or fencing around individual units without further permission.
6. External lighting only in accordance with an approved scheme.

The occupancy condition matters commercially. A site restricted to holiday use cannot be sold or let as residential accommodation, and lenders treat that restriction as material to value.

Ecology and biodiversity requirements

A preliminary ecological appraisal is the standard starting point, covering habitats on the field and any features to be removed for the access. Hedgerow removal for visibility splays is the commonest ecology issue on these applications and is often avoidable by moving the access.

Biodiversity net gain applies to development that is not exempt, and new hardstanding and roads on grassland lose habitat units that have to be replaced. On a large field the gain can often be delivered on site through grassland management, which costs less than buying units, but the baseline and the metric need a competent person and the gain plan is approved by the council after permission.

Evidence on tourism need and economic benefit

National policy supports sustainable rural tourism and the growth of rural businesses, and the planning statement should engage with that directly rather than simply asserting demand.

Useful material includes the local plan's own tourism policy and any evidence base behind it, the site's relationship to visitor attractions and footpath networks, and the employment the site will generate. Avoid claims you cannot evidence: occupancy projections without a source will be given no weight.

An illustrative example: a rural owner proposed eight pods on a 2 hectare field with an existing farm access. The first layout placed the pods along the highest contour. The revised layout moved them into the lee of an existing hedge line, kept the access unchanged to avoid hedgerow loss, used a package treatment plant sized to the general binding rules, and proposed a closed season from early January to early March. Permission came with holiday occupancy and lighting conditions. This example is illustrative rather than a real case.

Other rural diversification schemes follow the same evidence pattern. Getting permission for a fishing lake and angling facility and getting permission for a caravan and boat storage yard raise the same access, drainage and visual containment questions.

Your planning statement should pull the tourism policy, the landscape case and the drainage strategy into one argument rather than leaving them as separate documents that never meet.

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

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