Polytunnels

Polytunnel planning permission is one of the most-asked questions we get, and the honest answer starts with a question back: is it in your garden, or on agricultural land? Those are two completely different regimes, and advice for one is worthless for the other.

There is also a prior question that catches almost everyone, and it is the one worth understanding first. A polytunnel might not be development at all. If it is not development, you need nothing.

 

 

 

Is a polytunnel even development?

This is the hinge, and it is where the “can I put it on skids?” question actually lives.

Planning permission is only needed for development. Building operations are development. The use of land for agriculture is not: section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 puts that beyond doubt. So the question for any polytunnel is whether erecting it is a building operation, or merely something you are doing on the land.

The leading case is Hall Hunter Partnership v First Secretary of State [2006] EWHC 3482 (Admin), where Sullivan J considered “Spanish” polytunnels at a Surrey soft-fruit farm running to a peak coverage of 39 hectares. The court upheld the Inspector’s finding that they were development, and the reasoning rested on three factors:

• size: the tunnels were of substantial size and proportion, in linked blocks, one covering nearly four hectares on its own
• degree of physical attachment: machines were used to screw the legs up to a metre into the ground
• permanence: a single block took a ten-man team over 430 hours to erect and over 300 to dismantle

Sullivan J’s rhetorical question at the hearing is the one to hold on to. Asked what a ten-man team screwing legs into the ground for a week were doing if not erecting something, counsel had no satisfactory answer.

Two things follow, and they cut in both directions.

Hall Hunter does not mean every polytunnel needs permission. The three factors are a matter of fact and degree, decided case by case. Small structures over beds in a garden or allotment, low tunnels, French tunnels, cloches, sheeting laid over crops at ground level: these are at the other end of the scale entirely, and are not realistically building operations.

But it also does not mean a big polytunnel escapes because it comes down in winter. The Hall Hunter tunnels were seasonal, erected in February and dismantled in November. It made no difference. Permanence is about the character of the structure, not whether it stands all year.

Can I put it on skids?

The short answer: skids help, but they do not settle it, and on their own they will not save a large polytunnel.

The logic behind the question is sound. Physical attachment to the ground is one of the three Hall Hunter factors, so a structure resting on skids rather than screwed a metre into the soil scores better on that factor than one that is anchored. Some forms of polytunnel with impermanent fixings are not operational development at all.

The problem is that it is one factor of three. Size and permanence do not go away because the thing is sitting on runners. A structure the size of a hectare, taking a week to put up, is not rescued by the absence of ground anchors, and a decision-maker weighing all the circumstances is entitled to say so.

Where skids genuinely help is at the margin: a modest structure, light construction, plausibly moveable, actually moved from time to time. Where they do not help is as a device: a large commercial tunnel put on skids and never moved is unlikely to persuade anyone. The question a planning officer will ask is whether it is really moveable and really moved, not whether it theoretically could be.

If you are relying on this, the answer is not to argue it after the fact. It is to establish it in advance with a certificate of lawfulness of proposed use, which gets you a binding answer from the council rather than a hopeful assumption.

Polytunnels in a garden: Class E

If your polytunnel is in the curtilage of a house, and it is development, the route is Class E of Part 1 of the GPDO: the same permitted development right that covers sheds, greenhouses and garden offices.

A polytunnel fits comfortably. Class E permits any building or enclosure required for a purpose incidental to the enjoyment of the dwellinghouse, and the GPDO defines a building as any structure or erection. Growing vegetables for the household is incidental to the enjoyment of the house in the ordinary way.

The limits that will actually bite on a polytunnel:

• Height: 2.5 metres if it is within 2 metres of a boundary, otherwise 3 metres for most polytunnel shapes. The 4 metre allowance is for dual-pitched roofs, which a curved tunnel is not
• Not forward of the principal elevation: no polytunnel in the front garden
• The 50% rule: all buildings, enclosures and containers in the curtilage together cannot cover more than half the curtilage, excluding the original house. Everything counts: sheds, the extension, decking
• Single storey: not a problem here

Two situations where Class E is not available at all: the curtilage of a listed building, and a house that only exists because of a change of use under Class G, M, MA, N, P, PA or Q of Part 3. On designated land (national landscapes, conservation areas and the rest) anything more than 20 metres from the house is limited to 10 square metres in total, which will stop most polytunnels at the bottom of a long garden.

The height limit is the one that catches people. A commercial-scale hoop tunnel is often taller than 3 metres, and if it is going near a fence, the number is 2.5.

Polytunnels on agricultural land: a different world

Class E does not apply here. It is a right within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse, and agricultural land is not curtilage: Part 6 of the GPDO expressly excludes any dwellinghouse or garden from the meaning of “agricultural land”. If you are farming, you are in Part 6, and the first question is the size of the holding.

For an agricultural polytunnel of any real size, there are only two routes: Class A of Part 6, or a planning application. There is no third option, and skids are not one.

Five hectares or more, and you may have Class A: the erection of a building reasonably necessary for the purposes of agriculture within the unit, subject to the prior approval procedure. The ground area covered by any building erected under Class A must not exceed 1,500 square metres (From 21st May 2024), or 1,000 square metres where it is a building for livestock. Siting limits apply as well as area ones.

Any new private way on agricultural land eats into the 1,500 sq m if it’s within 90 m in a 2-year period.

Under five hectares but at least 0.4, and you are in Class B, which is narrower: it does not permit the erection of a new building at all.

Under 0.4 hectares, and Part 6 has nothing for you.

Three points that matter more than the class letters:

“Reasonably necessary for the purposes of agriculture” is a real test, not a formality. It is where Part 6 claims most often fail.

Class A and Class B are mutually exclusive, and it is the unit that is measured, not the field. If you are anywhere near the five-hectare line, read our page on what counts as an agricultural unit before you rely on either.

Prior approval is not optional. Class A development requires you to notify the council, which may then want to approve siting, design and appearance. Skipping it does not make the development permitted.

And the cumulative point from Hall Hunter: a farm covering large areas seasonally, block by block, was found to be developing its land. Scale is judged across the holding and across the season, not tunnel by tunnel.

Which is why, on agricultural land, the skids question rarely rescues anyone. Hall Hunter was decided on size and permanence as much as on attachment, and a commercial growing structure fails on those two whatever it rests on. Assume you need Class A or planning permission, and treat anything less as the exception you would want a certificate of lawfulness to confirm.

Why polytunnels cause so much trouble

Worth being straight about this. Polytunnels are one of the harder things the planning system deals with, and the reason is that they sit exactly on the line between “farming” and “building”.

Where express permission is needed, the arguments are about appearance in the countryside, agricultural need, and precedent. Appeal decisions genuinely go both ways depending on visibility and landscape sensitivity. Anyone who tells you polytunnels are always fine, or never fine, is selling something. Each case turns on its own facts.

If your application is refused, see our guide to how to appeal against a decision.

What it costs, and what to do

There is no fee for a polytunnel that is not development: that is the whole point of establishing whether it is.

If you want certainty in advance, a certificate of lawfulness of proposed use is the honest route: it gets you a binding determination rather than an assumption, and it is considerably cheaper than an enforcement notice. Prior approval under Part 6 has its own fee, and a full application another. Our planning fees page covers the current position. Note that councils now set their own application fees, so figures elsewhere online may not apply where you are.

Less is often more here. A smaller, lighter, genuinely moveable structure, sited away from boundaries and out of public view, may need nothing at all. The same growing area in one large anchored tunnel may need permission you will not get. That is worth knowing before you order the hoops, not after.

Other Common Projects

 

Many more projects to come....

 

Other Agricultural Sections

 

 

 

Polytunnels Page Updated: 8th August 2026