Shepherd huts: caravans, licences and permission

Shepherd hut planning turns on one question asked twice. Is the hut a caravan in law, and is the land being used as a caravan site? If the hut meets the statutory definition of a caravan, stationing it is not building work, and the planning issue is the use of the land rather than the structure. If it is bolted to a plinth, plumbed in and immovable in one piece, it is a building, and you are in a different conversation entirely.

Whether a shepherd hut is a caravan in law

Section 29 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 defines a caravan as any structure designed or adapted for human habitation which is capable of being moved from one place to another, whether towed or carried on a vehicle or trailer. Tents and railway rolling stock are excluded.

Two tests sit inside that. Habitability, which a shepherd hut with a bed and a stove obviously meets. And mobility, which is where arguments happen. The structure must be capable of being moved in one piece, in a real rather than theoretical sense. A hut on cast iron wheels with a drawbar passes easily. A hut craned onto brick piers, with the wheels removed and a timber deck built around it, may not.

Twin unit structures have their own dimensional limits under section 13 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968, as amended, so a large lodge assembled from two sections can still be a caravan if it stays within them. Check the current figures before relying on that, because the limits have been amended.

The consequence is practical. Get the hut wrong and you convert a change of use question into an operational development question, which brings the building into the assessment of design, materials and permanence, and removes any chance of relying on a caravan site exemption.

Stationing, and when the use changes

Putting a caravan on land is not development. Using land as a caravan site is a material change of use, and that needs planning permission unless a permitted development right applies.

The distinction that catches owners is incidental use. A shepherd hut inside the curtilage of your house, used by family and guests as part of the enjoyment of the dwelling, sits in a different position from the same hut let out by the night. Letting is a commercial use of the land, and on a rural holding it is a material change of use from agriculture. Number of huts, duration of stays, marketing, parking and the presence of a booking system are all evidence the case officer will weigh.

Class A of Part 5 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 grants permission for use of land as a caravan site where the use is one exempted by Schedule 1 to the 1960 Act. That is the route for short seasonal use of a few units, and the temporary use allowances for camping and caravan sites explain how the day counting works. For anything intended as a year round business, apply.

The site licence, and the order of the two consents

A site licence from the district or unitary council is required for use of land as a caravan site unless one of the Schedule 1 exemptions applies. Those exemptions cover, among others, use within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse, small numbers of units for limited periods, holdings of five acres or more with numerical caps, sites certificated by an exempted organisation, and accommodation for agricultural or forestry workers.

Tents are not caravans, so a canvas only campsite needs no site licence, although separate camping site licensing powers exist and some authorities use them.

The sequence matters. The council cannot issue a site licence unless the applicant already holds planning permission for use of the land as a caravan site. So planning first, licence second, and never sign a supply contract for six huts on the strength of a favourable phone call. The licence then carries model standards covering unit spacing, fire points, road widths and hard standings, and those standards frequently change the layout you submitted for planning. Read them before you draw the site plan.

Drainage and water for off-grid units

Off grid is a selling point and a consenting problem. Foul drainage from huts with sinks, showers or flush toilets has to go somewhere lawful. A septic tank or package treatment plant discharging to ground must comply with the general binding rules for small sewage discharges, or hold an environmental permit where the rules cannot be met, and proximity to a watercourse, a borehole or a groundwater source protection zone is what usually decides which.

Composting toilets avoid the foul discharge but not the waste question, because the end product still needs managing and the grey water from a washing up point still needs a soakaway sized properly.

Water supply is the quieter risk. Supplying water to paying guests from a borehole, spring or private main brings the private water supply regime into play, which means risk assessment and sampling through environmental health. Budget for it.

Occupancy conditions you should expect

Where permission is granted for a glamping enterprise in open countryside, the conditions are fairly predictable:

• Occupation limited to holiday purposes only, with no use as a sole or main residence
• A register of occupiers, kept and made available to the authority on request
• A maximum number of units, individually located on an approved plan
• A restriction to mobile units, with no static or twin unit caravans and no additional decking or permanent structures
• A closed season, or a limit on the number of weeks in the year
• Approved external colour finish, and a landscaping scheme to be implemented in the first planting season
• External lighting restricted or prohibited

The holiday occupancy condition is the one to read carefully before you sign a management agreement, because a condition worded as no occupation by the same person for more than a set number of consecutive days constrains the business model far more than a simple holiday use restriction.

Landscape effects in open countryside

Shepherd huts photograph well in a meadow and that is exactly the problem. A cluster of pale timber units on a skyline, each with a fire pit, a parking space and a string of festoon lights, reads as development from a long way off.

Site them against existing boundary vegetation rather than in the middle of a field. Use dark recessive colours on roofs, which are what you see from higher ground. Keep vehicles at a single parking area rather than beside each hut, and surface the track in bound gravel rather than tarmac. Avoid hard standings under the huts, both because they undermine the mobility argument and because they are what turns a temporary looking site into a permanent one in an officer's eyes.

Where the site is in a National Landscape, a National Park or a locally valued landscape, a Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment with viewpoints from public rights of way and higher ground is worth the cost. Elsewhere a proportionate landscape appraisal usually does.

What to submit for a small glamping proposal

A Planning Statement setting the proposal against the local plan's rural economy, tourism and countryside policies. A site plan showing hut positions, parking, tracks, bin and service points and the drainage route. A landscape appraisal. An ecology appraisal, because meadow and hedgerow habitats are usually involved and mandatory biodiversity net gain applies to most applications, with limited exemptions. A foul and surface water drainage strategy. A short transport note covering the access and visibility.

Diversification schemes of this kind are assessed on the same policy ground as farm workshops and offices, so if you have been through that exercise the policy framing will be familiar.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Whether a particular hut is a caravan, and whether an exemption applies, are legal questions that turn on the facts, so 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.

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