Updates to agricultural permitted development rights and prior approval applications

Government’s latest broadening of permitted development rights on 21 May 2024 focused on agricultural buildings. This includes both the construction and extension of buildings for agricultural use, as well as changing from agriculture to dwellings or commercial use.

Details of the legislative updates are covered in a separate news story. This article focuses on the forthcoming changes to the online application system that will account for them.

While the changes are outstanding on Planning Portal

Please note that while these changes are outstanding, the following application types do not reflect the latest legislation:

• Prior Approval: Building for agricultural/forestry use (Note that the changes are for agriculture only, forestry developments will be able to use the current or updated version)
• Prior Approval: Change of use – agricultural buildings to dwellinghouses
• Prior Approval: Change of use – agriculture to flexible commercial use

To work around this while we make the required updates, you can use our blank PDF forms to make your applications. These have been updated to ‘2024’ versions (check bottom right corner) that account for the current legislation.

Separately, if you wish to take advantage of the temporary transitional provisions that, until 20 May 2025, allow applicants to use the permitted development rights for agricultural buildings or change of use to dwellings as they stood prior to 21 May 2024, then these applications can continue to be made ‘as is’ on Planning Portal and, once changes are made, functions that continue to allow this will also be provided.

Forthcoming changes to the online application system

We will update this article once we have a confirmed date for when these changes will be implemented.

Prior Approval: Building for agricultural/forestry use

This application will have its ‘Proposed Building’ questions updated to refer to the new increased allowances for ground area coverage, as well as collecting details on any engineering operations, and if the work would be carried out on (or on land within the curtilage of) a scheduled monument.

These questions will allow either the current or previous permitted development rules to be used, as per the transitional provisions referred to above.

A wider review of how we might update all our ‘legacy’ prior approval application types to provide increased validity though use of specific ‘Eligibility’ questions will also be carried out with a view to further improvements in the future.

Prior Approval: Change of use – agricultural buildings to dwellinghouses

This application’s questions will be comprehensively updated to comply with the significantly amended legislation.

• The ‘Eligibility’ questions will include criteria for both current and former agricultural buildings, as well as the limitations for any proposed extension, the requirement for existing highway access, and compliance with national space standards
• The ‘Dwellings and Floorspace’ questions will account for the increase in permitted dwellings and floorspace.
• Finally, the ‘Description of Proposed Works, Impacts, and Risks’ questions will, where an extension is proposed, mandate that the impact on the amenity of any adjoining premises is detailed.

The transitional provisions referred to above will be covered by a declaration at the top of the ‘Eligibility’ questions that can be made if applicants wish to utilise them. It instructs them to complete a supplementary PDF form that covers the ‘as was’ eligibility and information requirements and warns that the application may be refused if the information is not provided.

The titles and description of this application type will also be updated in line with the amendments.

Prior Approval: Change of use – agriculture to flexible commercial use

This application’s ‘Eligibility’ questions will be updated to reflect both:

• The wider range of commercial/training uses that the permitted development right now allows; and
• The increase in total cumulative floor space permitted (from 500 to 1000 square metres)

The titles and description of this application type will also be updated in line with the amendments.

What this will mean for local authorities

While the updates are forthcoming

Local authorities may see submissions where the applicant/agent has tried to work around the outdated questions to account for the current permitted development rules.

This may include details in a covering letter or other supporting document that needs to be considered alongside the answers to the questions.

They may also see a temporary increase in applications of the affected types through other submission channels.

Once the changes are made

The additional question fields and application data held within them will not be available in our legacy XML data.

Therefore, local authorities will need to review the question sets referred to above on the generated PDF application forms that we provide with every submission.

Our current JSON data standard will be updated to include the new application data from any additional questions, and we will communicate detailed information in due course.

Applications made using the transitional provisions for ‘Prior Approval: Change of use – agricultural buildings to dwellinghouses’ applications should have a supplementary information template PDF file as part of the supporting documentation. This covers the ‘as was’ eligibility and information requirements.