Class R permitted development: turning a farm building into storage

A farm with a building it no longer needs can, in England, turn it into storage without a full planning application, using a permitted development right known as Class R. The right is narrow and easy to get wrong. It turns on the building’s history, on a floor-space limit that counts everything already converted under Class R within the same established agricultural unit, and on a notification or application that has to come first.

This guide goes deeper on this one route than our guide to planning permission for storage containers, which compares all three routes to a lawful site, and it sits beside our guide to farm diversification into storage, which covers the business case. The planning law described here (the Order, the fees regulations and the Scottish Order) was checked on legislation.gov.uk on 9 October 2026.

What Class R allows

Class R is in Schedule 2, Part 3 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015. It permits a change of use of a building, and any land within its curtilage, from use as an agricultural building to a “flexible use”. Since 21 May 2024 the flexible uses are:

• Class B8, storage or distribution — the use this guide is about;
• Class B2, general industrial, but only to process raw goods (not livestock) that are produced on the site and are to be sold there, together with goods ancillary to that processing;
• Class C1, hotels;
• Class E, commercial, business or service;
• Class F.2(c), outdoor sport or recreation; and
• agricultural training.

A site that has changed use under Class R can later change to another use on that list, and each switch has its own notification or application, described below.

On 21 May 2024 an amending Order, S.I. 2024/579, set the current list and raised the cumulative limit from 500 m² to 1,000 m². The list had been B8, C1 and E only. The government’s planning practice guidance on gov.uk still shows the earlier list and a 500 m² upper limit, and was last updated on 26 July 2023. Where it differs from the Order, the Order is the law.

The land that changes use with the building is limited by the Order’s own definition of curtilage. For Class R it is the smaller of two areas: the land immediately beside or around the building that is closely associated with it and serves its purposes, or an area immediately beside or around it that is no larger than the ground the building itself occupies. So no more than an area the size of the building’s own footprint changes use with it, and a big yard around a small barn is not covered in full.

Does your building qualify for Class R?

Class R is not available if any one of five things is true. They are the five limbs of paragraph R.1 of the Order.

1. The history test is failed. The building must have been used solely for an agricultural use, as part of an established agricultural unit, on 3 July 2012. If it was in use before that date but not on it, the test is how it was used when it was last in use. If it was brought into use after 3 July 2012, it must have been used solely that way for at least ten years before the change begins.
2. The cap would be passed. The floor space of all the buildings that have changed use under Class R within the same established agricultural unit, added together, cannot exceed 1,000 m². That includes buildings converted earlier, so check what the unit has already used.
3. The site is, or forms part of, a military explosives storage area, an area where military explosives may be stored and whose safeguarding zone is identified on a map the Secretary of State has issued to the council.
4. The site is, or forms part of, a safety hazard area, an area notified to the council by the Health and Safety Executive or the Office for Nuclear Regulation.
5. The building is a listed building or a scheduled monument.

Some designations people expect to matter are not on that list. Class R has no exclusion for land in a National Park, an area of outstanding natural beauty or a conservation area, and none for a site of special scientific interest; Class Q, the right to convert barns to homes, excludes both. Class R has no Green Belt exclusion either, and the Order text we read never mentions the Green Belt. The right can still be taken away locally: under article 4 of the Order a council can direct that a permitted development right, Class R included, does not apply in an area or to a particular development. A direction does not stop development that passed prior approval before the direction took effect, if it is completed within three years of the prior approval date (article 4(2)(a)). Ask your council whether a direction covers the site.

Two definitions do much of the work. An agricultural building is a building, not a dwellinghouse, that is used for agriculture for the purposes of a trade or business. An established agricultural unit, for Class R, is agricultural land occupied as a unit for agriculture on or before 3 July 2012 or for ten years before the development begins.

Notify or apply: the two Class R routes

Before the first change of use, and again before any later switch to another use on the list, the developer (the person making the change) has to do one of two things. Which one depends on the cumulative floor space of the buildings that have changed use under Class R within the established agricultural unit. The government’s planning practice guidance, written for farm shops, counts the development you propose towards that total.

150 m² or less: notify. The developer gives the council three things: the date the site will begin to be used for any of the flexible uses, the nature of the use or uses, and a plan indicating the site and which buildings have changed use. That is all Class R prescribes for this route. It provides for no decision by the council and no waiting period.

Over 150 m²: apply. The developer applies to the council for a determination as to whether its prior approval will be required on four matters: transport and highways impacts, noise impacts, contamination risks on the site and flooding risks on the site. The application must include a written description of the development, a plan indicating the site and showing the proposed development, the developer’s contact address, an email address if the developer is content to receive email and, where the Environment Agency must be consulted, a site-specific flood risk assessment, together with the fee. Paragraph W of the Order then sets the procedure:

• The council consults the Environment Agency if the site is in Flood Zone 2 or 3, or in Flood Zone 1 with critical drainage problems the Agency has notified. It consults the relevant highway authority (and, where traffic uses a level crossing, the railway operator and the Secretary of State for Transport) if it thinks the development is likely to cause a material increase in traffic near the site, or a material change in its character.
• It publicises the proposal with a site notice displayed for at least 21 days, or by notice to adjoining owners or occupiers.
• It may ask the developer for more information, including assessments of impacts or risks and statements of how they will be mitigated.
• It must have regard to the National Planning Policy Framework so far as that is relevant to the four matters, and it must refuse prior approval if it decides the site would be contaminated land. It may otherwise approve with or without conditions that relate to those matters.
• Work must not begin until the council gives written notice that prior approval is not required, or gives its prior approval, or 56 days pass from the day it received the application without it telling the applicant whether approval is given or refused.
• Work is then carried out as approved, or as set out in the application where approval is not required or the 56 days have passed.
• Development under this route must begin within three years of the “prior approval date”: the day approval is given, or a determination that approval is not required is given, or the 56 days run out without the council saying whether approval is given or refused. If planning permission is granted for associated operational development within that period, the three years run from the date of that permission instead. Class R states no time limit for the notification route.

Prior approval is narrower than a planning application: on the merits the council weighs those four matters, not the whole range of planning considerations. It may also refuse if the development does not comply with the conditions, limitations and restrictions that Part 3 sets for Class R, or if the application gives too little information to show that it does.

What Class R does not cover

Class R is a right to change use. Several things people assume it includes, it does not.

• Building works. Class R is “development consisting of a change of use” and lists no building works, which we read as meaning it does not permit them, though the Order does not say so in terms. The Order mentions “associated operational development”, meaning building or other operations reasonably necessary to use the building for the new use, only in paragraph R.3(3), which restarts the three-year clock if planning permission is granted on an application for such works. Plan on a separate application for work that changes the outside of the building, and ask your council which of your works need one.
• Building Regulations. Class R is a planning right. The government’s planning guidance says that other consents, building regulations among them, may be needed even where no planning application is. A farm building sits in Class 3 of Schedule 2 to the Building Regulations 2010, which lists exempt greenhouses and agricultural buildings, only if it is used for agriculture (or is principally for keeping animals) and meets three conditions: no part is a dwelling, no point is less than one and a half times its height from a building with sleeping accommodation, and a fire exit is no more than 30 metres from any point in it. A change of use that takes a building out of the exempt classes is a “material change of use” (regulation 5(f)), and where the whole building changes use, regulation 6 requires such work, if any, as is necessary to meet the applicable requirements of Schedule 1, which in all cases include fire safety: means of warning and escape, internal fire spread, external fire spread of roofs, and access for the fire service. Ask your council’s building control what applies to your building before you start.
• Containers on open land. The right attaches to buildings and the land in their curtilage. Stationing containers in a field is a different matter, covered by Route 1 of our planning permission guide.
• Demolition and rebuild. The Order does not permit development that requires or involves demolishing a building (part of a building does not count), so replacing a barn is not a Class R conversion.
• New or wider access onto a trunk or classified road. The Order does not authorise forming, laying out or materially widening a means of access to an existing trunk road or classified road, or anything that obstructs the view of people using a highway used by vehicles so as to be likely to cause danger. Check the access early.
• A condition on an existing planning permission. Nothing in the Order permits development contrary to a condition on a planning permission granted otherwise than by the Order. If a condition limits how the building may be used, Class R does not override it.
• An unlawful building or use. The right does not apply if the building was built unlawfully or its existing use is unlawful.
• Environmental impact assessment. Development of a kind listed in Schedule 1 or 2 to the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations is not permitted unless the council has adopted a screening opinion, or the Secretary of State has made a screening direction, that it is not EIA development, or the Secretary of State has exempted it.

What changes once the building is in storage use

After a change under Class R the Order treats the site as having a sui generis use, for the purposes of the Use Classes Order and the Order itself. A sui generis use is one for which no class is specified. So a converted barn is not a B8 building in planning terms, even where B8 storage is exactly what goes on in it. Our entry on use class B8 describes the class itself.

Two things follow in the Order. The site stays flexible: it may later change to another use on the Class R list, with a notification or an application first each time. And a further right switches on for the converted building: the Part 7 Class E right to provide a hard surface, which has its own limits, one of which is 50 m² of new hard surface in total within the curtilage (surfaces that existed on 6 April 2010 do not count).

What it costs: the fee, business rates and VAT

The fee. An application for a determination whether prior approval will be required is charged under regulation 14 of the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012. From 1 April 2026 the government’s table of planning fees lists £249 for “all other applications for prior approval”. It does not name Class R, but both council tables we checked on 9 October 2026 do: Ribble Valley’s and Fylde’s, for fees from 1 April 2026, list a change of use from an agricultural building to a flexible commercial use under Part 3, Class R, at £249. Fees rise each 1 April with inflation, so check your own council’s current table. On the same date we found no fee set for the notification route.

Business rates. An agricultural building is exempt from business rates only while it is used solely in connection with agriculture. Put it, or a part of it divided off by a wall, partition or fence, to paid storage and that building or part becomes rateable, a principle set out in the Valuation Office Agency’s rating guidance. Our guide to business rates for self storage covers how the bill is worked out.

VAT. Providing a unit, a building or a fully enclosed container for a customer to store goods in is standard-rated, unlike lettings of land in general, which are exempt unless the person letting has opted to tax. On 9 October 2026 we found nothing in HMRC’s guidance on open-sided barns or open-air yards, so take advice for those. A farm’s storage income can count towards the VAT registration threshold. VAT on self storage sets out the rule, the exceptions and the thresholds.

Conversion work. The fee covers only the planning step. Our guide to the cost of building a self storage facility has published figures for converting an existing building.

Class R in Scotland (Class 18C), Wales and Northern Ireland

Scotland has a comparable right of its own: Class 18C of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992. The table sets the two side by side. The biggest differences are that every Scottish scheme needs an application, whatever its size, and that Scotland’s right includes building works that Class R does not list.

We searched the full text of the schedule of permitted development rights in each of the Welsh and Northern Irish orders, as consolidated on legislation.gov.uk on 9 October 2026 (including the 2026 amendments recorded there), and the Welsh Statutory Instruments of 2025 and 2026 with “permitted” in their titles, and found no equivalent of Class R. That is the result of a search, not a statement from either government, so ask the council before assuming a barn in Wales or Northern Ireland needs a full application.

Questions to settle before you start

• Can you show how the building was used on 3 July 2012, or when it was last in use, or for the last ten years?
• How much floor space has the unit already converted under Class R?
• Is the building listed or a scheduled monument, or the site a safety hazard area or a military explosives storage area?
• Does an article 4 direction cover the site, or a condition on an old planning permission limit the building’s use?
• What fee will the council charge, and what does it want in the application, the flood risk assessment especially?
• Will the plan need external works or new access onto a trunk or classified road? Class R does not cover new access onto those roads, and external works that materially change the building’s appearance are likely to need their own permission.
• Is the building within Class 3 of Schedule 2 to the Building Regulations today, and what will your council’s building control require for fire safety once it holds storage?
• What will business rates and VAT do to your numbers?

Once the building is open, self storage management software handles the licences, billing and collections that turn it into a business.

Sources

All read on 9 October 2026.

• Class R and paragraphs W and X: the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, Schedule 2, Part 3.
• Article 2 of the same Order, which defines a safety hazard area, a military explosives storage area and article 2(3) land.
• Articles 3 and 4 of the same Order, which set the general restrictions and let a council withdraw a right by direction (article 4).
• The 21 May 2024 amendments: S.I. 2024/579.
• Part 7, Class E of the same Order, the hard surfaces right.
• Regulation 14 of the 2012 fees regulations, regulation 18A (the annual indexation), and the government’s annual fee indexation tables.
• Class 18C of the Scottish Order, and Scottish Government Planning Circular 2/2024.
• The schedule of permitted development rights in the Welsh General Permitted Development Order 1995 and in the Northern Ireland General Permitted Development Order 2015, searched in full, and the Welsh Statutory Instruments of 2025 and 2026 with “permitted” in their titles.
• The government’s planning practice guidance, last updated 26 July 2023.
• The Building Regulations 2010: regulation 5 on material change of use, regulation 6 on the requirements that follow, and Schedule 2 on exempt buildings and work (Class 3).
• The Valuation Office Agency’s Rating Manual, section 2, Part 6, Part D, on agricultural premises.
• HMRC’s VAT Land and Property manual, the chapter on self storage (VATLP17500 to VATLP17900).