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Do You Need a Licence or Planning Permission to Trade From a Portacabin on Private Land?

by Conard
(manchester)

Grey portacabin catering cabin on private grassland in the UK

Grey portacabin catering cabin on private grassland in the UK

If you find a location to put a mobile Porto cabin business use, ? would you need planning permission or a local council trading licence if the land is common grass land not highways or public pathways off road location public common Freeland

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Jul 31, 2026
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by: MobCater

You're not imagining it, the official pages on this really do tie themselves in knots, mainly because two separate things get bundled together: permission to put something on the land, and permission to trade from it. It helps to deal with them one at a time.

Start with the trading side. A street trading licence is mostly about selling on the public highway or on land the council controls, so if you're genuinely on private land that's off the highway, you often won't need one. I say often, because some councils draw their consent zones widely and include certain private plots, so the only safe move is to ring the licensing team at the local council and ask them plainly about the exact spot you have in mind. They'll tell you in five minutes what would take you five hours to work out online.

Then there's planning, and this is the part people miss. Siting a portacabin for business use is normally treated as a change of use of the land, and as stationing a building on it, so it usually needs planning permission from the council's planning department, particularly if the cabin is going to stay put rather than come and go. There's a limited allowance for temporary use of land, but a standing catering cabin is a different animal, so check with planning before you spend a penny.

The bit I'd gently flag is the common land. Public common or common land isn't free land that anyone can settle on. It's almost always owned by someone, whether that's the council or an old manorial owner, and it carries extra legal protection. Placing a building or fencing on registered common land needs the owner's permission and, in most cases, formal consent under the Commons Act 2006. So that particular type of spot is rarely the easy option it looks like.

Whatever the land, you'll still need to register as a food business with your local EHO at least 28 days before you trade, and a cabin that stays in one place can also become liable for business rates. My order of play would be simple: get the landowner's written permission first, then speak to planning and licensing at the council, and only then commit.

Hope that helps

David

Disclaimer: This is general advice for UK mobile catering. Licensing and planning rules vary between councils, so always check with your local authority before you start trading.

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