Burdle and another v Secretary of State for the Environment and another [1972] 3 All ER 240
Burdle is the classic authority on identifying the planning unit. Bridge J set out the working rule which still appears throughout planning decisions: start with the whole unit of occupation unless a smaller area can be recognised as the site of activities which amount to a separate use both physically and functionally.
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- Neutral citation
- [1972] 3 All ER 240
- Court
- High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Divisional Court
- Judgment date
- 22nd June 1972
- Judge
- Lord Widgery CJ, Willis J and Bridge J
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What happened in Burdle
The site at Netley Marsh in the New Forest had historically been used as a scrapyard and car breakers’ yard. Retail sales of salvaged vehicle parts took place as an incident of that business.
After new owners acquired the site, a lean-to building was substantially altered and used for a much more intensive retail business selling new vehicle parts, accessories and camping equipment.
The planning authority served an enforcement notice alleging use of the premises as a shop. The central problem became: what was the correct planning unit against which any material change of use should be judged?
The wording of an enforcement notice does not create the planning unit
The Secretary of State treated the lean-to shop as the relevant planning unit largely because the enforcement notice used the word shop.
The Divisional Court held that this reasoning could not stand. The language chosen when drafting a notice does not conclusively determine the physical land unit whose use must be examined.
The decision-maker has to identify the planning unit from the facts on the ground.
First category: one main use with ancillary activities
Bridge J described three broad situations which can help identify the unit.
The first is where there is one recognisable main purpose to the occupier’s use of the land and other activities are incidental or ancillary to that purpose.
In that situation, the whole area used for the main purpose and its ancillary activities should normally be treated as one planning unit.
This is the familiar setting in which an office, storage area or modest sales activity may simply form part of a larger primary use rather than a separate planning use.
Second category: a composite use
A single unit can also contain several activities where none is properly described as ancillary to another.
If those activities form a composite use and are not confined to separate physically distinct areas, the whole unit of occupation may still be the appropriate planning unit.
The relative intensity of the different activities can fluctuate over time without necessarily creating several separate planning units.
Third category: physically and functionally separate uses
The third situation arises where a single unit of occupation contains physically separate and distinct areas used for substantially different and unrelated purposes.
In that case each area with its own main purpose, together with activities ancillary to that purpose, can form a separate planning unit.
This was the real issue in Burdle: had the retail activity within the lean-to grown and become sufficiently concentrated and independent that the building had become a separate planning unit from the scrapyard?
The useful working rule
Bridge J then gave the formulation for which Burdle is still cited.
A useful working rule is to assume that the unit of occupation is the appropriate planning unit unless and until a smaller unit can be recognised as the site of activities which amount in substance to a separate use both physically and functionally.
It is a working rule rather than a mathematical formula. The result remains one of fact and degree.
A planning unit can change over time
Burdle also recognises that the answer is not frozen forever.
An activity which begins as merely ancillary may grow until the single use becomes a composite use. A component of a composite use may later become so intensive and physically concentrated that it forms a separate planning unit of its own.
The planning unit therefore has to be identified at the relevant point in time and in light of the actual pattern of use.
The case was sent back for reconsideration
The court did not decide that the lean-to definitely formed a separate planning unit.
It considered that such a conclusion might well be open to the Secretary of State, given the scale and separation of the retail operation. But that factual judgment had not been reached using the correct approach.
The appeal was therefore allowed and the case remitted for reconsideration.
Why Burdle remains important
The Burdle working rule remains a starting point for questions involving mixed sites, ancillary uses, residential annexes, farms, commercial premises, HMOs, boats and many other planning uses.
It is also important not to confuse a planning unit with curtilage. A planning unit is identified for use-control purposes. Curtilage asks a different question about the relationship between land or structures and a particular building.
The later KP JR Management case is a good modern example of planning-unit analysis in the context of residential boats and moorings.
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Burdle Case Law Page Updated: 10th September 2026