Tattoo studios, barbers and the sui generis question

A barber can move into a former shop without planning permission. A tattoo studio usually cannot, and the tattoo studio use class question is one of the most frequently argued points on any high street. Both occupy the same kind of unit, both serve walk-in customers, and the Use Classes Order treats them differently, which is why leases, agency particulars and council pre-application advice so often disagree with each other.

The short version is that hairdressing and beauty services sit comfortably in Class E, while tattooing and piercing are widely treated as sui generis by local planning authorities. The longer version is more interesting, because the Order never names tattoo studios at all.

Which high street uses sit outside the commercial class

Class E, introduced in September 2020, swallowed most of the old A1, A2, A3, B1, D1 and D2 categories. Shops, restaurants, cafes, financial and professional services, gyms and indoor sport, medical and health services, nurseries, offices and light industry all sit within it, and movement between them is not development.

Article 3(6) of the Order then lists the uses excluded from any class. On a typical high street that list catches hot food takeaways, drinking establishments including pubs and wine bars, drinking establishments with expanded food provision, nightclubs, live music venues, cinemas, concert halls, bingo halls, dance halls, theatres, casinos, betting offices, pay day loan shops, launderettes, taxi businesses, amusement arcades, petrol filling stations, premises selling or displaying motor vehicles, hostels and scrap yards.

Each of those needs planning permission to arrive in a unit, and permission again to leave for a Class E use, since nothing brings a sui generis use back into a class automatically.

Where tattoo studios actually fall

The Order does not name tattoo or piercing studios in Article 3(6), and it does not name them in Class E either. The question is therefore whether the use fits within Class E(c), services appropriate to provide in a commercial, business or service locality, or whether it falls outside every class and is sui generis by default.

Most local planning authorities take the second view and ask for a planning application. That is not a universal position, and there are appeal decisions pointing in different directions, which are indicative of how inspectors have approached the issue rather than binding precedent. Officers tend to distinguish tattooing from hairdressing on the basis that it is a regulated skin piercing activity licensed by the council under separate public health legislation, and that its amenity and character effects differ from those of an ordinary service shop.

There is one way to settle it for a particular unit, and only one. Apply for a certificate of lawfulness of proposed use under section 192 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The authority either confirms the use is lawful without permission or it does not, and the answer binds the council in a way that an email from a duty officer does not.

Why the classification matters to a lease

Commercial leases usually define a permitted use by reference to the Use Classes Order. Where the lease was drafted before September 2020 and refers to Class A1, the reference is normally construed against the Order as it stood when the lease was granted, unless the drafting says "as amended from time to time".

That produces awkward results. A tenant may have planning freedom to switch within Class E while remaining contractually tied to a retail use, or the reverse. Before signing, read the permitted use clause and the alienation provisions together with the planning position, and do not assume that one follows the other.

Rent review and alienation clauses can also make a change of use a trigger for something else, which is a separate reason to establish the planning position first rather than afterwards.

Establishing the lawful existing use

A unit's lawful use is what it was last lawfully used for, not what the signage says. Vacant units are the difficulty, because the lawful use survives vacancy but the evidence of it decays.

Gather rates records, leases and licences, dated photographs, trade directories, utility accounts and any previous planning decisions. The same evidential exercise applies when working out whether a subsidiary activity has become a separate use, which is the question behind a farm shop with a cafe attached.

Where an unauthorised use has been running for a long time, the enforcement time limits matter. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 moved the limit for taking enforcement action in England to ten years for all breaches, so check the commencement position and the date the use began before relying on immunity.

Applying for a use the council will accept

If permission is needed, the application is judged on planning merits, and for a high street unit those merits are predictable. Character and function of the frontage. Hours of operation. Noise and disturbance, particularly where the unit sits under flats. Servicing and parking. Highway safety where the use generates short stay parking on a busy street.

Deal with them in the supporting statement rather than waiting to be asked. Where the authority's frontage policy protects a proportion of retail units, a Retail Impact Assessment or a shorter frontage analysis showing the existing mix along the parade is often what tips the balance.

Hours are the usual negotiation. A condition restricting opening is easier to accept at the outset than to vary later, though a section 73 application to vary trading hours is available if trading patterns change.

Local plan policies on use concentrations

Many authorities operate policies limiting the proportion of non-retail uses in a defined frontage, or the number of a particular use within a given distance. Hot food takeaways near schools, betting offices and, in some places, tattoo and piercing studios all appear in these policies.

Read the adopted local plan rather than the summary on the council's website, and check whether a supplementary planning document sets the percentage thresholds. Where the parade is already above the threshold, the argument shifts to the vitality of the frontage and the length of time the unit has been vacant, which is exactly the evidence an applicant should be collecting.

Article 4 directions can also remove permitted development rights in these frontages, which affects the ability to convert a unit to residential later.

Shopfront and signage consequences

A new use usually arrives with a new fascia, and that is a separate consent regime. The Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007 give deemed consent for certain signs on business premises, with limits on size, illumination and projection, and express consent is needed outside those limits.

In a conservation area or on a listed building the position tightens considerably, and internally illuminated box signs are refused as a matter of routine in sensitive frontages. Alterations to the shopfront itself, including new doors, security shutters and ventilation grilles, may need planning permission in their own right.

Get the sign and the shopfront drawn as part of the same application. Splitting them produces two decisions, two sets of conditions and often two different officers.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

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