Change of use planning permission for a shop, café or restaurant fit-out in London

Do I need planning permission for a shop fit-out?

Planning control applies to development, and section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 defines it as building operations or a material change in the use of land. The same section then takes two things out. Works that affect only the interior of a building, or do not materially affect its external appearance, are not development. Nor is a change from one use to another within the same use class. Between them those two exclusions cover most fit-outs: stripping a unit, building partitions, a counter, a kitchen, toilets, ceilings and lighting, then opening as the same kind of business, needs no planning application.

What turns a fit-out into a planning job is nearly always one of four things: the use moves into a different class, the outside of the building changes, signs go up, or the building is listed. How much work the unit needs in the first place depends on the condition the landlord hands it over in, which our guide to shell and core, Cat A and Cat B fit-outs explains.

Class E use class: what moves freely inside it

On 1 September 2020 the Use Classes Order 1987 was amended to create Class E, Commercial, Business and Service. It merged the old shop, financial and professional services, café and restaurant, and office classes with parts of the old institution and leisure classes. Because they now sit in one class, a clothes shop can become a café, or a bank a dental clinic, without planning permission for the change of use. The sub-letters still appear in leases and council records, but moving between them is not development.

One exception is easy to miss. A shop mostly selling essential goods, including food, with premises of no more than 280 square metres and no similar shop within a 1,000-metre radius, falls in Class F.2 rather than Class E, so a corner shop of that kind cannot simply become a café. If the unit you are taking is the only convenience store for a kilometre, check its class before you sign.

Planning conditions that pin a unit to one use

The freedom of Class E can be taken away by the planning permission that created the unit or last changed its use. A council can attach a condition restricting a unit to a named use, a restaurant only for example, or removing the right to change within the class, and that condition binds every later occupier. Ask the landlord or your solicitor for the unit's planning history and read the conditions. Where there is doubt, a lawful development certificate under section 192 of the 1990 Act gives you the council's written confirmation that the use you propose is lawful, which lenders and incoming tenants tend to value.

When you need change of use planning permission

You need change of use planning permission when the new use falls in a different class from the unit's lawful use, or is sui generis, meaning it belongs to no class at all. In hospitality the two that catch people out are the hot food takeaway and the drinking establishment. A pub, wine bar or bar, including one with expanded food provision, is sui generis, so a café that wants to become a bar needs permission, and so does a bar that wants to become a restaurant. Some moves between classes, notably from Class E to flats, are permitted development under Part 3 of the General Permitted Development Order, which works through a prior approval application rather than full planning permission.

Sui generis hot food takeaway, or restaurant?

The order draws the line on where the food is eaten. Class E(b) covers food and drink mostly consumed on the premises; a hot food takeaway sells hot food mostly consumed off them. A restaurant that adds a collection hatch and a heavy delivery trade can drift across that line, and the council judges it as a matter of fact and degree: the share of trade, the seating, the queue on the pavement. A coffee shop selling drinks to go is not, on the wording of the order, a hot food takeaway, because the definition turns on hot food. If takeaway is the plan from the start, apply for it. London planning policy resists new takeaways close to schools, and many boroughs limit them in parades that already have several, so permission is not a formality.

Permitted development, prior approval and Article 4 directions

An Article 4 direction lets a council withdraw permitted development rights across a defined area, and London boroughs use them widely, most often to stop shops and offices in town centres turning into flats without a full application. A direction cannot touch a change within Class E, because that is not development in the first place. It matters to a fit-out when the plan relies on a permitted change between classes, or on an external alteration that would otherwise be permitted. Each council publishes its directions with maps, so check the address before relying on any permitted route.

Restaurant planning permission: extract flues and external plant

Restaurant planning permission is usually about the kitchen extract rather than the use. A commercial kitchen needs a duct to carry cooking fumes away, and in a London terrace with flats above that normally means a flue running up the rear elevation to discharge above the roof. That is external work that materially affects the building's appearance, so it needs planning permission even where the change of use does not. Councils usually ask for drawings of the duct route, details of the odour control and how it will be maintained, and a noise assessment for the fan, because the neighbours most likely to complain live directly above the kitchen. Air-conditioning condensers, chillers and other plant on a flat roof or in a rear yard are judged the same way.

Settle this before the lease is signed. A unit with a consented extract route is worth more to a restaurant than one without, and a freeholder can refuse a duct up their wall whatever the council decides. We build restaurant fit-outs and café fit-outs across London to the client's designer's drawings, and the extract route is one of the first things we ask to see, because it fixes the kitchen position, the ceiling layout and the order of the work.

Shop fronts, signs and advertisement consent

A new shop front, a change to the glazing pattern, a new entrance or external roller shutters all alter the outside of the building, so they normally need planning permission; a like-for-like repair does not. Many London councils publish shop front design guides, and in a conservation area they expect traditional proportions and often resist solid external shutters. Our shop front installation page covers the build.

Signs have a regime of their own. The Control of Advertisements Regulations 2007 give deemed consent, meaning no application, to many signs on business premises within limits on size and position: non-illuminated fascia lettering, for example, with no character over 0.75 metres high and the top of the sign no higher than 4.6 metres or the bottom of the first-floor window, whichever is lower. Illuminated signs on business premises have their own deemed consent class with tighter limits, and it does not apply in a conservation area, so most illuminated fascias and projecting signs in central London need express advertisement consent. The council has eight weeks to decide, express consent normally lasts five years, and displaying a sign that needs consent without it is a criminal offence. The government's guidance on advertisements sets out the classes.

Listed building consent for a shop, and conservation areas

If the building is listed, the rules change. Under section 7 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, any work to demolish, alter or extend a listed building in a way that affects its character needs listed building consent, and that includes work inside: removing a historic shop front, a cornice, a staircase or a fireplace, or cutting a kitchen extract through old fabric. Carrying out such work without consent is a criminal offence for whoever does it or causes it to be done, and no time limit makes it safe later. There is no application fee, but the council will want a heritage statement and drawings that show exactly what is touched.

London has a great many conservation areas, Covent Garden and Soho among the best known. A conservation area does not stop a change of use, but it raises the bar for anything external: shop fronts, signs, shutters, flues and plant are all judged against the character of the area, and demolishing a building or most of one needs planning permission. Check the council's conservation area map before the designer draws the front.

Building regulations for a commercial fit-out

Planning and building regulations are separate, and building regulations usually apply to a fit-out that needs no planning permission at all. The Building Regulations 2010 cover building work, and regulation 5 also lists the changes of use that count as a material change of use, with requirements of their own. One is a building becoming a shop where it was not one before, and the Regulations define a shop to include premises selling food or drink to the public, so an office turned into a café is caught. A clothes shop turned into a café is not, but the building work inside it still is.

• Part B, fire safety: escape routes, travel distances, fire doors, and the fire separation between the unit and any flats or offices above
• Part M, access: a level or ramped entrance where it can reasonably be achieved, door widths, and a wheelchair-accessible toilet where customer toilets are provided
• Part F, ventilation: extract for the kitchen and toilets, and ventilation for any room without opening windows
• Part L, energy: new lighting, heating and cooling must meet the efficiency standards for non-domestic buildings
• Electrical, gas and extraction work, certified by the relevant specialist before the unit opens

Approval comes from the borough's building control service or a registered building control approver, and the approved documents set out what compliance looks like for each part. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 then makes the business responsible for a fire risk assessment from the day it opens.

The landlord's licence to alter, and the consents after planning

A commercial lease almost always bars alterations without the landlord's written consent, usually given in a licence to alter. It is a private contract, not a planning consent, and a landlord can refuse or attach conditions a council never would: approved drawings, working hours, insurance, reinstatement at the end of the lease. On a busy street, or in a building with offices or flats above, those conditions are often why a fit-out runs out of hours, and out-of-hours and overnight work on shops and cafés is part of how we work. Agree the licence before the programme is fixed.

Then come the operating consents. A food business must register with the council at least 28 days before it starts trading. Selling alcohol, or serving hot food or hot drink between 11pm and 5am, needs a premises licence under the Licensing Act 2003. Tables and chairs on the pavement need a pavement licence from the council. None of these is planning, and none of them replaces it.

How long a change of use application takes

A change of use for a shop, café or restaurant is normally a minor application, and the council has eight weeks from the date it validates the application to decide, or longer if you agree in writing; major development has thirteen. Add the time to prepare drawings, an odour and noise report for a kitchen, and a heritage statement for a listed building or conservation area, and the planning side often sets the opening date more than the build does. Apply as soon as the heads of terms are agreed, and make the lease conditional on consent where you can. The Planning Portal explains the application routes and the national fees.

We are a London fit-out contractor, not a planning consultant. The application, the drawings and any heritage, noise or odour reports come from the client's architect, designer or planning consultant. Our part is to build to the approved drawings and every condition on the consent, as principal contractor under CDM 2015 where the job needs one, on a written fixed-price contract.