Proving the agricultural use date for a Class Q conversion

Class Q turns on a date and a word. The date is 20 March 2013, and the word is "solely". Class Q agricultural use evidence has to show that the building was in agricultural use, and only agricultural use, on that date or when it was last in use before it, and the burden of showing that sits with the applicant rather than with the council.

Officers refuse prior approval applications on this point more often than on design or highways. It is the easiest ground to refuse on, because an absence of evidence is enough.

Note that Class Q was amended in May 2024, changing the number of dwellings and the floorspace permitted and adjusting several other limits. Read the current text of the class rather than an older summary, and confirm the qualifying date wording there, because the limits quoted in pre-2024 guidance are out of date.

The qualifying date and what it requires

The class applies to a building used as an agricultural building, which means a building used for agriculture for the purposes of a trade or business, excluding a dwellinghouse.

The use test runs to the qualifying date of 20 March 2013. Where the building was not in use on that date, the test looks at the use when it was last in use before it. Where a building was brought into agricultural use after that date, the class imposes a minimum period of agricultural use before it can be converted, so a barn built and used from 2020 is not a candidate yet.

The word "solely" does the damage. A building used partly for agriculture and partly for something else fails, and the something else does not have to be large. Storing a contracting business's plant, running a workshop for repairs to third-party machinery, housing a few liveried horses, or letting a corner for a neighbour's caravan all take the use outside "solely agricultural".

Equestrian use is the most frequent killer. Grazing can be agriculture, but keeping, exercising, training or liveried horses is not, as explained in the note on livery yards and the point horses become a business. The same applies to the diversified uses discussed in the note on farm diversification workshops and offices: the moment a building housed one of those, the Class Q claim for the relevant period is in trouble.

Documents that count as evidence

Build the pack from records created at the time for another purpose. They carry far more weight than anything written for the application.

1. Rural Payments Agency records: scheme claims, land parcel maps and any agri-environment agreement showing the holding and its parcels.
2. The county parish holding number and its registration history.
3. Livestock records, including the cattle movement register and passports, sheep movement records and annual inventory returns.
4. Farm accounts and tax returns identifying the holding, with the trading activity for the relevant years.
5. Invoices for feed, fertiliser, seed, veterinary services, machinery repair and contractor work, dated and addressed to the holding.
6. Agricultural tenancy agreements, farm business tenancies and grazing licences, with a schedule showing continuity.
7. Business rates records, because agricultural buildings are exempt and an exemption record is third-party confirmation of the use.
8. Insurance schedules describing the building and its use.
9. Dated photographs and aerial imagery across the period, which are useful for showing what the building contained.

Arrange them in a chronology rather than by category, with one row per year and the document reference against it. An officer who can follow a timeline will grant. One handed a box of invoices will ask for more information and the 56 days will run out.

Subsidy and herd records in support

These two sources deserve particular attention because they are specific, dated and created by a third party.

Scheme claim records show the parcels claimed, the areas and the years, which establishes an active agricultural holding. They do not say what was in a particular building, so pair them with something that does.

Livestock records do that job well. A cattle movement register showing animals held on the holding across the relevant years, together with the building layout, supports an inference that the building housed them. Where the building was used for crop storage instead, grain passports, weighbridge tickets and sales invoices to a merchant serve the same purpose.

Where the holding was arable with no livestock and the building was used for machinery and crop storage, the honest route is invoices and photographs. Machinery service records addressed to the holding, fuel deliveries, and a photograph of the building with a combine in it all help.

Statutory declarations and their weight

A statutory declaration is sworn evidence and authorities take it seriously, but only when it is specific.

The useful declaration names the person, states how they know the facts, gives dates, describes what the building was used for in concrete terms, and exhibits the documents it refers to. A declaration from a retired farm worker saying "I worked at the holding from 2004 to 2015 and the building at the north of the yard housed around 40 head of cattle each winter, as shown in the movement records at exhibit B" is evidence. One saying "the barn has always been agricultural" is not.

Collect declarations from people with no interest in the application where you can: a former employee, the vet, the feed merchant's representative, a neighbouring farmer, the contractor who did the silage.

Where the building changed hands recently

A purchaser who bought the barn as a conversion opportunity often has no records at all, because they stayed with the farm.

Deal with it at the point of purchase. Make the seller's co-operation a contractual obligation: delivery of scheme records, accounts extracts, livestock records and a statutory declaration, with the obligation surviving completion. A clause of that kind costs nothing at the time and is impossible to obtain afterwards.

Where the purchase has already happened without it, the routes are a direct approach to the seller, a request to the Rural Payments Agency for records relating to the holding, the former tenant or employee, and the council's own files, which may contain earlier applications describing the use.

How an officer tests the claim

Expect three lines of enquiry.

Whether the use was agricultural at all, assessed against the statutory definition and the trade or business requirement. A hobby operation with no trading activity can fail here.

Whether the use was solely agricultural, with the officer looking for any sign of a mixed use: a sign at the gate, a vehicle in a photograph, an earlier planning application for a workshop, a business rates entry.

Whether the building is the one described, which is why a plan identifying the building and its curtilage, with photographs keyed to it, matters more than it sounds.

Officers also test whether the building is capable of conversion, because Class Q permits works reasonably necessary for conversion rather than rebuilding. A Structural Survey from a suitably qualified engineer confirming that the frame and walls can take the proposed loads is worth commissioning before the application rather than in response to a query. Councils expect a qualified author for structural work and professional review is strongly advised.

Assembling the pack

Submit the pack in this order:

• A short statement of case setting out the building, the claimed use and the qualifying date position.
• A year-by-year chronology table with document references.
• The indexed documents, in chronological order.
• The statutory declarations with their exhibits.
• A site plan with the building and its curtilage identified.
• Internal and external photographs keyed to a plan.
• The structural report.

Add a Planning Statement addressing the matters the authority can consider on a Class Q prior approval, which are transport and highways, noise, contamination, flooding, whether the location makes residential use impractical or undesirable, and design and external appearance. Keep the use evidence and those matters in separate sections, because they answer different questions.

The determination period is 56 days, and if the authority does not determine within it the development may proceed in accordance with the details submitted. That makes a complete, well-ordered submission worth real money, because an incomplete one gives the authority grounds to say the period never started.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. A Lawful Development Certificate is the only formal way to confirm that works are lawful.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. Enter the holding postcode on PlanScope to see which reports a barn conversion is likely to need.