Reports for a traveller site with four pitches

A four pitch traveller site is a small application that carries an unusually specific evidence base. The traveller site planning documents an authority expects are driven by national planning policy for traveller sites rather than by general housing policy, and two of them have no counterpart on a conventional residential scheme: the accommodation need evidence, and the pitch layout drawing showing fire separation between caravans.

Four pitches sits below every major development threshold. That does not make the application light. It makes it a minor application with a major policy test.

The policy that applies and the definition that matters

National planning policy for traveller sites sits alongside the National Planning Policy Framework and applies to applications for pitches and plots. Its annex sets out the definition of gypsies and travellers for planning purposes, which turns on a nomadic habit of life rather than on ethnicity. Whether the intended occupiers meet that definition decides whether the policy applies at all, and it is the first thing a case officer checks.

Evidence of the occupiers' circumstances therefore belongs in the application, usually as a statement of personal circumstances. Where the occupiers do not meet the definition, the proposal is assessed as general residential development in that location, which in open countryside is a different and usually harder case.

Your planning statement should deal with the definition, the adopted plan's traveller policy, the authority's five year supply of deliverable pitches, and the sequential logic of why this site rather than another.

Need evidence for four pitches

Authorities assess need for pitches through a local accommodation needs assessment covering households residing in or resorting to caravans. Where that assessment shows unmet need and the authority cannot demonstrate a deliverable supply of pitches, that is a material consideration of real weight, and national policy is explicit that unmet need and a lack of alternative sites are relevant.

Cite the authority's own published assessment and its latest pitch supply position. Where the assessment is out of date, say so and explain the consequence rather than substituting your own figure. Where the application is for a named family already living in the area, set out their housing history, any children in local schools and any health needs registered locally, because those are the personal circumstances that carry weight in the balance.

Pitch layout, amenity buildings and fire separation

The layout drawing does more work on a traveller site than on any comparable application. Each pitch normally needs space for one static caravan and one touring caravan, a parking area, an amenity building with a kitchen, a bathroom and a day room, and a private garden area.

Separation distances come from the licensing standards for caravan sites rather than from planning policy. The model standards for caravan sites in England recommend a minimum of 6 m between caravans and at least 3 m between a caravan and the pitch boundary or internal road. Draw those dimensions on the plan and label them. A layout that cannot be licensed will not be permitted, and officers check this before anything else.

Amenity buildings are small but they are buildings, so their siting, height and materials matter in a countryside setting. Keep them low, behind the caravans where possible, and clad in something that reads as agricultural rather than suburban.

Flood risk and caravan vulnerability

This is the issue that refuses more traveller site applications than any other. Caravans, mobile homes and park homes intended for permanent residential use are classified as highly vulnerable in the flood risk vulnerability classification in planning practice guidance. Highly vulnerable development should not be permitted in Flood Zone 3, and in Flood Zone 2 it requires the exception test.

So check the flood zone before you do anything else. A Flood Risk Assessment is needed for any site in Zone 2 or 3, or of one hectare or more, and a sequential test is needed wherever the site is not in Zone 1. Surface water flood risk matters too, because many rural sites sit outside the fluvial zones but inside a surface water flow path.

Where the site is in Zone 2, the exception test requires both wider sustainability benefits and safety for the lifetime of the development, including safe access and egress. For caravans that is a demanding standard, and a flood warning and evacuation plan agreed with the emergency planning officer is normally part of the answer.

Foul drainage and water supply

Rural traveller sites are rarely on a public sewer. A Foul Sewage Assessment should set out the drainage hierarchy honestly: mains connection first, then a package treatment plant discharging to a watercourse under the relevant environmental permit or exemption, then a septic tank with a drainage field designed to the building regulations standard.

Percolation testing is the evidence that decides which of those is deliverable. Do it early. A site with heavy clay and no watercourse within reach has a drainage problem that no amount of planning argument solves.

Water supply needs the same treatment. Confirm the connection point with the undertaker, and where a private supply is proposed, set out the source, the treatment and the sampling regime.

Access, visibility and internal circulation

The highway authority will want visibility splays measured to the standard for the road's speed, an access width that allows two vehicles to pass clear of the carriageway, and a turning area inside the site so that a towing vehicle and caravan can enter and leave in forward gear. A refuse vehicle needs to reach the bin presentation point or the point needs to be at the entrance.

Internal roads should be surfaced in something that drains and supports a static caravan delivery. Gates set back from the carriageway, not on the back edge of the footway.

Landscape containment and boundary treatment

Most of these sites are in open countryside, so landscape effect is the main planning harm to be weighed. A Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment proportionate to the scale of the proposal should identify the receptors, the viewpoints and the effect of caravans, vehicles and lighting on the character of the area.

Containment works better than screening. Existing hedgerows, a dip in the ground, a belt of woodland on the skyline: these do more than a new hedge that takes fifteen years to perform. Where new planting is proposed, use native species of local provenance, show the planting at maturity, and secure management through a condition.

Lighting is often overlooked and frequently conditioned. Low-level bollard lighting on the internal road, no column lighting, and a lighting plan showing spill at the boundary.

Conditions, licensing and documents that answer objections

Expect a condition limiting occupation to those meeting the national policy definition, limiting the number of caravans by type, restricting commercial activity, and requiring the landscape scheme to be implemented in the first planting season. Personal conditions tied to a named family are sometimes imposed and are worth proposing where the case rests on personal circumstances.

A site licence under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 is a separate consent from the local authority's licensing team, and the layout has to satisfy both regimes. Objections commonly raise highway safety, drainage, landscape and the effect on local services. Each of those is answerable with a document, and the application is far stronger when each answer is in the pack on day one rather than produced in response to a committee report.

To build the list against your own site, browse the 66 report types by category, or enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports the site is likely to need.

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.