Reports for a temporary use under the 28 day right

The 28 day temporary use documents question has a short answer for most landowners: if you stay inside the right, there is no application and therefore no reports at all. Class B of Part 4 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 permits the use of land for any purpose for not more than 28 days in total in any calendar year, with a sub-limit of 14 days for a market or for motor sports, together with any moveable structure needed for that use. Step outside the count or the exclusions and you need planning permission, at which point the document set depends on what you are actually doing.

What the right permits

Read the words carefully, because each limb does work.

Any purpose. The right is not restricted to a list of uses, so a farm can hold a wedding fair, a car boot sale, a food festival or a filming day under the same provision.

Not more than 28 days in total in any calendar year. The usual reading is that the 28 days are a total across all temporary uses of that land in the year, not 28 days for each different purpose. The calendar year resets on 1 January, which is why so many events are programmed for late winter and early spring.

Of which not more than 14 days may be for a market or for motor car and motorcycle racing, including trials of strength or hill climbing. So a monthly farmers market runs out of days at 14 even though the general allowance is 28.

And the provision of any moveable structure for the purposes of the permitted use. Marquees, portable toilets, temporary stages, catering units and demountable fencing are all covered while the use is running. Anything that stays after the days are used up is a different matter.

The uses it excludes

Four exclusions catch people out, and the first is the one that catches almost everyone.

The right does not apply to a building, or to land within the curtilage of a building. So the yard beside a farmhouse, the paddock inside a residential curtilage and the car park of a village hall are all outside Class B. An open field is the intended case.

It does not permit use as a caravan site. Camping and caravanning sit under a separate regime, with exemptions under the caravan sites legislation and separate site licensing, and the day counts there are different.

It does not permit the display of an advertisement, so temporary event signage needs its own treatment under the advertisement regulations.

And within a site of special scientific interest, specified uses including motor sports, clay pigeon shooting and war games are excluded entirely.

Counting days

The count is the whole game, and the burden of proving it falls on the landowner.

Authorities generally count any day on which the land is used for the temporary purpose. Where moveable structures are erected in advance or left afterwards, officers often treat those days as part of the use, so a three day event with a two day build and a one day strip can consume six days rather than three. Confirm the approach with your local planning authority before you programme a season, because practice varies and the interpretation matters more than the headline number.

Two further points. The 28 days attach to the land, so splitting a field into notional parcels to claim separate allowances does not work where the use is in substance one use of one planning unit. And a use that continues beyond the days is not retrospectively unlawful for the earlier days; it becomes a breach from the point the allowance runs out.

Records that prove compliance

Keep a log from the start of the year, not from the first complaint. A simple sheet is enough: the date, the purpose, the number of structures on the land, and whether the day was build, operation or strip.

Add supporting material as you go. Dated photographs of the field empty and in use. Booking confirmations and invoices. Any licence or temporary event notice for the day. Where the land is let for events, the agreement with each organiser recording the dates.

An authority investigating a complaint will ask for this, and the difference between a landowner with a diary and one without is usually the difference between a conversation and an enforcement notice.

When an application is needed instead

Once the use exceeds the allowance, or falls inside an exclusion, you need planning permission, and the sensible route is often a temporary permission for a defined season rather than an open-ended one.

The document set then follows the use rather than the fact that it is temporary. A planning statement sets out the proposal, the policy context and the duration sought. Where traffic generation is the issue, a Transport Statement covering access, visibility, internal circulation, parking layout on grass and the management of arrivals and departures is normally expected. Where amplified music, public address or late finishes are proposed, a Noise Impact Assessment assessed against the relevant standard is what environmental health will want, and councils expect a suitably qualified author for it. Refuse, water and sanitation arrangements belong in a Waste Management Strategy or an equivalent operational note.

Rural sites carry their own policy overlay. In the Green Belt or a National Landscape, openness and landscape character come into the assessment, as our note on which reports an equestrian use in the Green Belt needs explains for a related case.

Highways, licensing and the other consents

Planning is one of four or five permissions, and the others have their own lead times.

Licensing comes first for most events. A temporary event notice under the Licensing Act 2003 covers alcohol, regulated entertainment and late night refreshment for a small event, with a cap on the number per premises per year. A bigger or more frequent operation needs a premises licence from the licensing authority, which is usually the same council but a different department.

Then the highway authority for temporary traffic management, signing on the public highway, or any temporary road closure. Temporary direction signs on the verge need consent. Food, animal welfare and fire safety requirements apply independently of all of it.

None of these are planning conditions, and none of them are discharged by staying inside the 28 days.

The enforcement risk

Exceeding the count is a breach of planning control. The authority can serve an enforcement notice requiring the use to stop, and for a use that is actively causing harm it can serve a temporary stop notice, which bites immediately.

The practical risk is worse than the legal one for a business that has sold tickets. A notice served three weeks before an event does not care about your bookings, and an appeal will not be determined in time. So count conservatively, keep the log, and where a season really needs 35 days, apply for the permission in the winter rather than arguing about days in July. Farm diversification sits alongside other rural uses in the same policy framework, as reports for a livestock building on a working farm shows.

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. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required.