The six planning condition tests do not operate as a package. Each one has to justify itself.
An appeal concerning B8 storage at Albury Dairy in Selborne gives a particularly useful worked example. The Inspector relaxed the operating hours, retained controls over reversing alarms and BS4142 noise, removed a requirement for loading plant to be electric, and rewrote an HGV condition because its wording was not precise enough.
Appeal 6005081 therefore shows the six tests doing what they are meant to do: one condition can be necessary, another unreasonable, and a third valid in principle but in need of more precise wording.
The section 73 application at Albury Dairy
Planning permission SDNP/23/01293/FUL, granted on 28th May 2024, authorised the change of use of the front part of two former agricultural buildings at Albury Dairy, Honey Lane, Selborne, to Class B8 storage.
The later application, reference SDNP/25/04098/CND, was made under section 73 to vary the operating-hours condition and remove four other operational controls.
South Downs National Park Authority did not determine the application in time, so the appeal proceeded under section 78. Inspector Claire Coles allowed the appeal on 18th September 2026, but not on the terms originally sought by the appellant.
The familiar six tests
The Inspector expressly set out the familiar six tests for a planning condition. A condition should be:
- Necessary
- Relevant to planning
- Relevant to the development to be permitted
- Enforceable
- Precise
- Reasonable in all other respects
The Planning Practice Guidance on conditions still uses those six headings. The August 2026 NPPF groups them more compactly in Policy DM6, but the underlying exercise is the same. Our wider guide to planning conditions explains the current policy position.
Operating hours were relaxed, but not removed
The original hours were 08:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday and 08:00 to 13:00 on Saturday, with no operation on Sundays or public holidays.
The appellant relied in part on the fact that agricultural activity could have taken place without those same restrictions. The Inspector did not accept that as an equivalent fallback. The character, frequency and control of activities associated with a B8 storage use could be materially different from agricultural operations.
A restriction on hours therefore remained necessary to protect neighbouring living conditions and the relative tranquillity of the National Park.
However, the evidence did not justify keeping the original weekday hours. The Environmental Health Officer did not object to an extension, and the Inspector varied the condition to permit operation from 07:30 to 18:00 Monday to Friday, with the existing 08:00 to 13:00 Saturday period retained and no operation on Sundays or public holidays.
White-noise reversing alarms survived
Another condition required mobile plant, equipment and vehicles using reversing alarms to use white-noise or broadband alarms rather than conventional tonal bleepers.
The appellant argued that it could not necessarily control alarms fitted to visiting vehicles. The Inspector considered that a small storage operation could manage its visitors and could also use operational alternatives such as a banksman where necessary.
Sharp tonal alarms could materially affect the tranquillity of the rural area. The condition was therefore retained.
The all-electric loading condition failed the test
The original permission also required plant used for loading and unloading to be electrically powered, excluding diesel, gas and LPG equipment.
This condition did not survive. The Inspector considered that an all-electric requirement was too onerous for a small business, particularly when the development was already controlled by operating hours and a separate noise limit.
The Environmental Health Officer had agreed that the condition could be removed. The Inspector therefore deleted it from the new permission.
The BS4142 noise limit was retained
The original permission limited the rating level of noise from plant and activities so that it would not exceed the existing background sound level at nearby residential premises and gardens, assessed using BS4142:2014.
The appellant challenged the practicality of controlling third-party equipment and monitoring noise on neighbouring land. The Inspector was not persuaded that those points made the condition unnecessary or unenforceable.
The storage operator could control the plant and activities taking place as part of its use, and the receptor-based standard provided a measurable limit. The noise condition was therefore retained in substance.
The HGV condition was justified, but badly defined
The most interesting drafting point concerned HGV movements.
The original condition limited the site to 10 HGV movements per week, with records to be made available to the council. But it did not adequately define either an HGV or what counted as a movement.
The Inspector agreed that heavy vehicle activity needed to be controlled because B8 storage traffic could cause disturbance to nearby residents. She did not, however, accept an interpretation under which an HGV entering and then leaving the site would count as two separate movements. That would have been unnecessarily restrictive.
The condition was rewritten so that:
- An HGV means a vehicle with a gross weight exceeding 7.5 tonnes
- One trip means a vehicle entering the site and subsequently leaving it
- No more than 10 HGV trips may take place in a calendar week from Monday to Sunday
- A log of entry and exit dates and times must be kept and made available to the authority on request
The principle of the condition survived. The imprecise wording did not.
Section 73 produced a fresh permission
A successful section 73 application or appeal does not literally edit the old decision notice. It results in a new, free-standing planning permission for the same development subject to the revised condition schedule.
That is what happened here. The Inspector restated the conditions governing the new permission, including the revised hours, retained reversing-alarm and BS4142 controls, the rewritten HGV restriction and the other unaffected conditions.
The original permission remains in existence as a separate planning permission, subject to the usual rules about implementation and compatibility.
Greenwich and Albury answer different condition questions
The recent Greenwich Class AA appeal asked whether a condition could lawfully be imposed in a prior-approval context and whether it was related to a matter the GPDO allowed the authority to consider.
Albury starts one stage later. Once a planning condition exists, does that individual condition still satisfy the tests of necessity, relevance, enforceability, precision and reasonableness?
The two decisions are therefore useful alongside each other, but they are not the same story.
The practical lesson
When challenging or drafting conditions, do not ask whether the conditions as a group feel onerous. Test each one separately:
- What planning harm is this particular condition addressing
- Would permission have to be refused without it
- Can the person bound by it actually comply
- Can the authority tell objectively whether it has been breached
- Are the key terms defined precisely enough
- Does the burden go further than the evidence justifies
Albury Dairy is a good demonstration of why the answer can be different for every condition on the same decision notice.
Read the full Albury Dairy appeal decision hosted by Planning Geek.
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