Pubs after 2020: why a drinking establishment is sui generis

A pub has no use class. Drinking establishments were left outside Class E when the Use Classes Order was amended in 2020, so they sit as sui generis, and every change of use into or out of a public house needs planning permission. There is no route from pub to restaurant, pub to shop or pub to flats that avoids an application, and there has not been one since permitted development rights were removed from pubs in 2017.

That is a deliberate policy choice rather than an accident of drafting. Parliament and successive ministers decided that the loss of a pub should be a decision a community can see and comment on.

What happened to the old A3 and A4 classes

Until September 2020 the Order contained Class A3 for restaurants and cafes and Class A4 for drinking establishments. The amendment that year revoked the whole of Parts A and B of the Schedule and created Class E, which absorbed shops, financial services, restaurants and cafes, offices, light industry, gyms, nurseries and clinics.

Drinking establishments did not go into Class E. Neither did hot food takeaways, cinemas, concert halls, bingo halls or live music venues. All became sui generis.

So a restaurant can become a shop or an office overnight without telling anyone, while the pub next door cannot change to any of them without permission. Our note on where the line falls between a hot food takeaway and a restaurant deals with the same fault line from the food side.

Drinking establishments with expanded food provision

There is a second category to know about. A 2017 amendment created a separate use for drinking establishments with expanded food provision, covering the pub that has grown a substantial kitchen and dining trade while remaining a pub.

Both that use and the plain drinking establishment are now sui generis. Movement between them is dealt with in Part 3 of the GPDO, which has been amended several times, so check the current consolidated text before assuming that adding a full food offer is free of planning consequences.

The distinction matters in enforcement. A pub that has quietly become a restaurant with a bar, where the drinking trade is incidental, may have made a material change of use. That is a question of fact and degree decided on the character of the operation rather than on turnover alone, and evidence such as covers, opening hours, layout and marketing all bear on it.

Changing a pub to something else

Any change out of a pub needs permission, and the policy test is usually a local plan policy protecting public houses as community facilities, supported by national policy on retaining facilities that meet community needs.

Those policies are usually structured in three limbs. Whether the public house remains viable in its current use. Whether it has been actively marketed for a reasonable period at a realistic price. And whether the community's need for the facility is met by alternative provision within a reasonable distance.

You have to answer all three. Applications fail most often on the second, because the marketing exercise was too short, priced against the alternative use value rather than the trade value, or conducted by an agent with no experience of licensed property.

Demolition is not a way round any of this. Permitted development rights for demolition exclude drinking establishments, so knocking a pub down requires planning permission in its own right.

Mixed schemes often fare better than a straight loss. Keeping a smaller bar at ground floor with flats above answers the community facility point directly, and officers can recommend approval without asking a committee to accept that the pub has gone. The arithmetic is harder, because a reduced trading area has to work commercially, and the service yard, cellar access and refuse arrangements all have to survive the residential layout. But the planning risk drops sharply, and on a corner site with a first floor that has been empty for a decade it is frequently the only deliverable answer.

The marketing evidence councils expect

Read the policy and the supporting document before commissioning anything, because the required period is usually stated and it is commonly 12 months or more.

A credible marketing file contains the instruction letter and the agent's terms, the asking price with a written justification benchmarked to comparable licensed property transactions, the particulars as published, a schedule of the media used and the dates, a log of every enquiry with dates and outcomes, and any offers received with the reasons for refusal.

An offer refused because it was below the alternative use value will be treated as an offer refused, and it will sink the application. So will a price that no operator would pay, which is why the valuation evidence should come from someone who values pubs rather than from a general commercial surveyor.

Viability evidence should cover trading accounts for a reasonable period, the reasons for decline, and what a competent operator could achieve with reasonable investment. Councils are entitled to be sceptical of a decline that followed a deliberate reduction in opening hours.

Assets of community value

Anyone can nominate a pub for listing as an asset of community value under the Localism Act 2011, and pubs are the most commonly listed type of asset in England.

Listing does two things. It triggers a moratorium when the owner decides to dispose of the property: an initial interim period of six weeks during which a community interest group may express an interest, extending to a full moratorium of six months if one does. And it is capable of being a material consideration in the determination of a planning application, because it evidences community value.

What listing does not do is give the community a right to buy at a discount or block a sale. At the end of the moratorium the owner may sell to whoever they choose at whatever price. A protected period then runs during which no further moratorium applies.

For an owner planning a change of use, an ACV listing is a signal that objections will be organised and that a committee decision is likely. For a community group, it is the mechanism that buys time to put funding together.

Conditions on hours and outdoor areas

Where permission is granted for a pub, or for the intensification of an existing one, conditions concentrate on the things that generate complaints.

Hours of opening for the premises and separate, earlier hours for any external drinking area. Restrictions on amplified music outdoors. A noise management plan covering last orders, dispersal and the collection of glassware. Delivery and bottling hours, because a bottle bank emptied at 6am is as much of a problem as a late licence. And extraction for any kitchen, which needs a ventilation and extraction statement describing the duct route, termination height and odour abatement.

Licensing under the Licensing Act 2003 is a separate regime with separate objectives and a separate decision maker. Where a planning condition and a premises licence disagree about hours, the more restrictive of the two governs, and operators routinely discover this after buying the business.

The evidence pack for any of these applications should lead with the policy test. You can draft the planning statement, noise and extraction documents from the full report index and have them reviewed before submission.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.