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Use Class B8 – Storage & Distribution
Use Class B8 of the Use Classes Order 1987 (as amended) is for the use as storage or as a distribution centre. This includes open air storage.
Newbury District Council v Secretary of State for the Environment [1981] A.C. 578 is useful historical authority on storage use. The House of Lords treated the earlier storage of civil-defence vehicles as use of the hangars as a ‘repository’; storage did not have to be a wholesale or commercial warehousing operation. The modern classification still depends on the actual use of the planning unit, but storage can therefore be the primary use even where the occupier is storing its own goods or vehicles rather than operating a storage business for third parties.
This comes up often in the storage say of classic cars away from the domestic dwelling. The use could well be B8 despite it looking like a garage internally. Appeals have been won as such.
Use Class B8 also covers storage and distribution centres. A warehouse with a trade counter can remain B8 where the counter is genuinely ancillary to the storage or distribution use, but the label on the business is not decisive — the scale and character of the activities on the particular planning unit matter.
Likewise, an office, showroom or small sales area can be ancillary to a B8 use. An ancillary activity does not acquire a separate B8 use class of its own; it forms part of the primary use of the planning unit while it remains ancillary.
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Permitted development changes for Use Class B8
There is currently no general Part 3 permitted development right taking an ordinary B8 use into another permanent use class. A change of use will therefore normally require planning permission unless another specific right applies.
You can move to Use Class B8 from Use Class B2 under Class I, provided the change relates to no more than 500 m² of floor space. Agricultural buildings can also move to a flexible B8 use under Class R, subject to its limitations and conditions. A site changed under Class R is treated as sui generis for the purposes of the Use Classes Order and the GPDO, even while B8 is one of the flexible uses permitted there.
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Examples for Use Class B8
According to the Planning Geek directory of uses, B8 also includes buildings used for storage, catering storage and distribution, distributions centres, open air storage, warehouses.
Use Class B8 Page Updated: 24th August 2026