Reports for a livestock building on a working farm

A new livestock building on a holding of five hectares or more may be permitted development under Part 6 of Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, which means a prior notification rather than a full application. The condition that decides most schemes is the 400 metre rule: a building for accommodating livestock, or a slurry store, cannot be permitted development if it lies within 400 metres of the curtilage of a protected building. Measure that first, because everything else follows from where the building can go.

Prior notification is not a light-touch planning permission. It is a determination on siting, design and external appearance only, and the council cannot refuse the principle of the building.

What Part 6 prior notification covers and its limits

Class A of Part 6 permits the erection, extension or alteration of a building reasonably necessary for agriculture on an agricultural unit of five hectares or more, subject to conditions. The main ones:

• the ground area covered must not exceed 1,000 square metres, counting other buildings erected on the unit within 90 metres in the previous two years
• the height must not exceed 12 metres, reduced to 3 metres within 3 kilometres of an aerodrome
• no part may be within 25 metres of the metalled part of a trunk or classified road
• a building for accommodating livestock, or a structure for storing slurry or sewage sludge, must not be within 400 metres of the curtilage of a protected building

For significant development, which includes erecting a building, the developer applies to the local planning authority for a determination whether prior approval is required for the siting, design and external appearance. The authority has 28 days to respond. If it says prior approval is not required, or fails to respond in time, the work can proceed in accordance with the notified details.

On units below five hectares but at least 0.4 hectares, Class B applies and is much narrower, permitting extensions and alterations rather than new buildings. In National Parks and on other sensitive land the rights are restricted further, so read the Order rather than a summary.

Slurry, odour and separation distances

Protected building means a permanent building normally occupied by people, excluding buildings on the agricultural unit itself and buildings occupied by someone employed in agriculture there. A neighbour's house counts. Your own farmhouse usually does not.

The 400 metre restriction only removes the permitted development right. It does not mean a livestock building within 400 metres is unacceptable, and it does not mean one at 450 metres is acceptable. Odour travels on prevailing wind and is affected by topography, ventilation design and management, and environmental health officers assess it on that basis rather than by distance alone.

Where odour is contested, an Odour Assessment sets out the source terms, the sensitive receptors, the dispersion characteristics and the mitigation. Councils usually expect a suitably qualified author for this work and professional review is strongly advised. The practical mitigation is in the design: covered slurry storage, ventilation discharging away from receptors at sufficient height, clean and dirty water separation, and a management regime for mucking out and muck heap siting.

Ammonia is a separate issue from odour and it catches applicants out. Where the holding lies within a few kilometres of a designated site, Natural England will assess ammonia deposition against critical loads, and that assessment can require an Air Quality Assessment and modelled emissions even for a modest unit. Intensive pig and poultry installations above the permitting thresholds also need an environmental permit from the Environment Agency, which is a separate consent from planning.

Access and farm traffic on the local road

Highway objections to farm buildings are rarely about trip numbers. They are about the access geometry and about mud.

Check three things. Visibility at the field or yard access, measured for the actual speed of the road, because an access adequate for a tractor may not be adequate for an articulated feed lorry. The swept path for the largest delivery and collection vehicle, including milk tankers and livestock transporters. And the surfacing of the first stretch of the access, because an unsurfaced entrance dragging mud onto a classified road generates complaints and can attract highway authority action.

A Transport Statement is rarely needed for a single building on a working farm. A short access and servicing note with a swept path drawing usually answers the point, and it is worth including in the notification even though siting, design and appearance are the only formal considerations. Officers read it.

Landscape and the building's siting

Siting is the consideration the council can control, and it is where notifications are most often refused approval of details.

The arguments that succeed are familiar. Group the new building with the existing farmstead rather than isolating it in open fields. Use the fall of the land to reduce apparent height. Orient the ridge with the contours and with the other buildings. Choose dark recessive colours for cladding and roofing, typically a slate grey or dark olive profile sheet rather than galvanised. And plant in a way that reflects the local field pattern rather than a screen belt of conifers.

Where the holding lies in a National Landscape or a National Park, or where the building would be prominent from a public vantage point, a Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment proportionate to the scale of the building will be expected. On most single-building schemes that means a short assessment with photographs from agreed viewpoints and an honest account of where the building will be seen from, rather than a full assessment to the landscape institute guidelines.

Take the photographs in winter. A screening argument based on summer foliage invites the obvious question.

Water, drainage and pollution prevention

Livestock buildings generate dirty water, and the regulatory framework around it sits outside planning while still shaping the design.

Slurry and silage storage is governed by its own regulations requiring notice to the Environment Agency before construction or substantial alteration, with design standards for containment and capacity. In a nitrate vulnerable zone the storage capacity requirement is measured in months rather than weeks, and undersized storage is the commonest cause of a pollution incident on an expanding unit.

For the planning submission, show clean and dirty water separated, roof water discharged to a soakaway or watercourse separately from yard water, yard drainage collected to storage, and the position of the muck heap away from watercourses, field drains and boreholes. Where the site drains towards a watercourse or sits in a flood zone, drainage and flood evidence will be needed at the level the lead local flood authority expects.

An ecological check is worth doing early. A Preliminary Ecological Appraisal picks up bats in an existing building due for demolition or alteration, barn owls, breeding birds in the hedgerow you were planning to remove, and ponds within 500 metres that raise a great crested newt question. Those constraints are seasonal, and finding them in February is much better than finding them in June.

Where a full application becomes necessary

Any of these takes the scheme outside Part 6:

1. Ground area over 1,000 square metres, or cumulative area over the limit with recent buildings within 90 metres.
2. Height over 12 metres, or over 3 metres near an aerodrome.
3. A livestock building or slurry store within 400 metres of a protected building's curtilage.
4. Any part within 25 metres of a trunk or classified road.
5. A unit under five hectares, where Class B allows no new buildings.
6. A building not reasonably necessary for agriculture, which includes a building for a diversification enterprise dressed up as agricultural.
7. Development requiring environmental impact assessment. New floorspace for rearing pigs or poultry above the Schedule 2 threshold in the 2017 Regulations triggers a screening request, and the local planning authority's screening opinion should be obtained rather than assumed.

Where a full application is needed, the report set grows quickly, and the logic of scoping it is the same as for any rural scheme. The exercise for a ten pod glamping site follows the same order: statutory gateways first, then the contested technical issues, then the supporting narrative.

Preparing the notification

Keep it short and complete. A Part 6 notification needs a description of the proposed development, a site plan showing the unit and the building's position, elevations with dimensions and materials, and a statement of why the building is reasonably necessary for agriculture, with the holding's area and enterprise stated.

Add the 400 metre measurement, drawn and dimensioned to the nearest protected building's curtilage. Add the cumulative area calculation if any building has gone up within 90 metres in the last two years. State the height. Confirm the distance to any classified road. A council that can verify each condition from the drawing usually issues its determination inside the 28 days.

Then keep the paperwork. The conditions attaching to Part 6 continue to apply after construction, including restrictions on how the building is used, and the notification is your evidence of what was authorised. Where the position is doubtful, a lawful development certificate under section 192 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is the only formal way to confirm that proposed works would be lawful.

This is general guidance rather than 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.