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The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1963
Historical reference only. This page reproduces the wording and context of the 1963 Order, which has been superseded. Do not use the classes below as a statement of current law. For the present English system, use the Use Classes Index and the current Planning Use Classes guide.
In 1963 we saw the third Use Classes Order issued. It consolidated the 1950 Order and its two 1960 amendments into a fresh instrument. Motor-vehicle sales had already been removed from the general shop class by the first 1960 amendment, and the 1963 Order carried that position forward alongside the newer betting-office provisions.
This Order applied to the whole of England and Wales. You can read the original 1963 Order on legislation.gov.uk.
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A “shop” was defined as a building used for the carrying on of any retail trade or retail business wherein the primary purpose is the selling of goods by retail, and includes a building used for the purposes of a hairdresser, undertaker or ticket agency or for the reception of goods to be washed, cleaned or repaired, or for any other purpose appropriate to a shopping area, but does not include a building used as a funfair, garage, petrol filling station, office, betting office, or hotel or premises ( other than a restaurant) licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquors for consumption on the premises ;
A “funfair” included an amusement arcade or pin-table saloon.
An “office” included a bank, but didn’t include a post office or betting office.
A ” betting office ” means any building in respect of which there is for the time being in force a betting office licence pursuant to the provisions of the Betting and Gaming Act 1960.
” motor vehicle ” means any motor vehicle for the purposes of the Road Traffic Act 1960
The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 stated that the use thereof for any other purpose of the same class shall not be deemed to involve development.
Use Classes
| Class I | Use as a shop for any purpose except as:- (i) a fried fish shop; (ii) a tripe shop; (iii) a shop for the sale of pet animals or birds; (iv) a cats-meat shop (v) a shop for the sale of motor vehicles (carried forward from the 1960 amendment) |
| Class II | Use as an office for any purpose. |
| Class III | Use as a light industrial building for any purpose. |
| Class IV | Use as a general industrial building for any purpose. |
| Class V | Use for any work which is registrable under the Alkali, etc. Works Regulation Act, 1906(d), as extended by the Alkali, etc. Works Orders, 1928 to 1963, except a process ancillary to the getting, dressing or treatment of minerals, carried on in or adjacent to a quarry or mine. Use for any of the following processes, except as aforesaid, so far as not registrable under the above Act: – (i) smelting, calcining, sintering or reduction of ores, minerals, concentrates or mattes; (ii) converting, re-heating, annealing, hardening, melting, carburising, forging or casting of iron or other metals or alloys; (iii) recovering of metal from scrap or drosses or ashes ; (iv) galvanising; (v) pickling or treatment of metal in acid ; (vi) chromium plating. |
| Class VI | Use for any of the following processes so far as not included in Class V and except a process ancillary to the getting, dressing or treatment of minerals, carried on in or adjacent to a quarry or mine: – (i) burning of building bricks ; (ii) lime or dolomite burning ; (iii) production of calcium carbide or zinc oxide ; (iv) foaming, crushing or screening of stone or slag. |
| Class VII | Use for any of the following processes so far as not included in Class V:- (i) the production or employment of cyanogen or its compounds; (ii) the manufacture of glass, where the sodium sulphate used exceeds 1.5 per cent. of the total weight of the melt. (iii) the production of zinc chloride |
| Class VIII | Use for any of the following processes so far as not included in Class V:- The distilling, refining or blending of oils, the production or employment of cellulose lacquers (except their employment in garages in connection with minor repairs), hot pitch or bitumen or pyridine; the stoving of enamelled ware; the production of amyl acetate, aromatic esters, butyric acid, caramel, hexamine, iodoform, B-naphthol, resin products (except synthetic resins, plastic moulding or extrusion compositions and plastic sheets, rods, tubes, filaments, fibres or optical components produced by casting, calendering, moulding, shaping or extrusion), salicylic acid, or sulphonated organic compounds ; paint and varnish manufacture (excluding mixing, milling and grinding); the production of rubber from scrap ; or the manufacture of acetylene from calcium carbide, for sale or for use in a further chemical process. |
| Class IX | Use for carrying on any of the following industries, businesses or trades so far as not included in Class V : — Animal charcoal manufacturer. Animal hair cleanser, adapter or treater. (carried forward from the 1960 amendment) Blood albumen maker. Blood boiler. Bone boiler or steamer. Bone burner. Bone grinder. Breeder of maggots from putrescible animal matter. Candle maker. Catgut manufacturer. Chitterling or nettlings boiler. Dealer in rags or bones (including receiving, storing, sorting or manipulating rags in or likely to become in an offensive condition, or any bones, rabbit-skins, fat or putrescible animal products of a like nature). Fat melter or fat extractor. Fellmonger. Fish curer. Fish oil manufacturer. Fish skin dresser or scraper. Glue maker. Gut scraper or gut cleaner. Leather dresser. Maker of meal for feeding poultry, dogs, cattle, or other animals from any fish, blood, bone, fat or animal offal, either in an offensive condition or subjected to any process causing noxious or injurious effluvia. Manufacturer of manure from bones, fish, fish offal, blood, spent hops, beans or other putrescible animal or vegetable matter. Parchment maker. Size maker. Skin drier. Soap boiler. Tallow melter or refiner. Tanner. Tripe boiler or cleaner. |
| Class X | Use as a wholesale warehouse or repository for any purpose |
| Class XI | Use as a boarding or guest house, a residential club, or a hotel providing sleeping accommodation. |
| Class XII | Use as a residential or boarding school or a residential college. |
| Class XIII | Use as a building for public worship or religious instruction or for the social or recreational activities of the religious body using the building. |
| Class XIV | Use as a home or institute providing for the boarding care and maintenance of children, old people or persons under disability, a convalescent home, a nursing home, a sanatorium or a hospital (other than a hospital, home, hostel or institution included in Class XVI). |
| Class XV | Use (other than residentially) as a health centre, a school treatment centre, a clinic, a creche, a day nursery or a dispensary, or use as a consulting room or surgery unattached to the residence of the consultant or practitioner |
| Class XVI | Use as a hospital, home or institution for persons of unsound mind, mental defectives, or epileptic persons, or a home, hostel or institution in which persons may be detained by order of a court or which is approved by one of His Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State for persons required to reside there as a condition of a probation or a supervision order. |
| Class XVII | Use as an art gallery (other than for business purposes), a museum, a public-library or reading room, a public hall, a concert hall, an exhibition hall, a social centre, a community centre or a non-residential club. |
| Class XVIII | Use as a theatre, a cinema, a music hall, a dance hall, a skating rink, a swimming bath, a Turkish or other vapour or foam bath or a gymnasium, or for indoor games. |
SI 1963/708 was made on 29th March 1963 and came into operation on 1st May 1963.
You can view the original version here.
There was one amendment to the Use Classes Order 1963
SI 1965/229 – the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) Order 1965
This order was replaced by The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1972
1963 Use Classes Order Page Updated: 25th August 2026
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