Key amendments to the Class Q, Class R and Class A of Part 6 of the Permitted Development Right Rules

Following Rishi Sunak's announcement that permitted development rules will be updated in April at the NFU conference earlier this year, the government left it to the last minute laying the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development etc.) (England) (Amendment) Order 2024 before parliament at 4:30pm on Tuesday, the 30th of April. The rules come into force on 21st May 2024 but there is a transitional period until 20th May 2025.

The key changes are for Class Q, Class R and Class A of Part 6. Please see below the headline changes:

Class Q

Class Q now relates to "buildings on agricultural units and former agricultural buildings to dwelling houses" therefore the agricultural use for buildings on established agricultural units has been removed but where the site is no longer part of an established agricultural unit the building cannot be used for any non-agricultural purpose. The new relevant date is the 24th of July 2023.

Previously depending on the floor area of the proposed dwelling house, it would either be classified as a smaller dwelling house or larger dwelling house. These two classifications have now been removed and there is one overall limit of a dwelling house not exceeding 150 m².

The number of houses able to be created as part of these rules has been extended from 5 to 10.

The cumulative floor space of all the proposed houses has been extended to 1,000 m².

Previously, if a development resulted in the external dimensions of the building extending beyond the existing dimensions it would not be permitted however an allowance of protrusions up to 0.2 m to accommodate building operations has now been allowed.

Single storey extensions of up to 4 m at the rear of the existing building is now allowed provided it is on an existing hard surface.

Now the existing building (excluding any proposed extension) must be capable of complying with the nationally described space standard.

Class R (agricultural buildings to a flexible commercial use)

The list of uses has been updated too:

a) “falling within one of the following provisions of the Use Classes Order—

• Class B2 (general industrial) of Schedule 1;
• Class B8 (storage or distribution) of Schedule1;
• Class C1 (hotels) of Schedule 1;
• Class E (commercial, business or service) of Schedule 2; or
• Class F.2(c) (outdoor sport or recreation) of Schedule 2; or

b) for the provision of agricultural training.”.

Also the size limit has been extended from 500 m² to 1000 m².

For sites proposed to be used for general industrial purposes within class B2 it must only be used for the processing of:

• (i)”raw goods, excluding livestock, which are produced on the site and are to be sold on the site, or
• (ii)raw goods mentioned in paragraph (i) together with goods ancillary to the processing of those raw goods”.

Class A (agricultural development on units of 5 ha or more) of Part 6 (agricultural and forestry)

Amendments have been made to the ground area to be covered:

• Any works or structure (other than a fence) for accommodating livestock or any plant or machinery arising from engineering operations is limited to 1,000 m²
• Any building erected or extended or altered by virtue of class A would exceed 1,500 m²

Please note: we have only highlighted the key changes and all the detail can be found at: The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development etc.) (England) (Amendment) Order 2024 (legislation.gov.uk)