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Why Does Planning Say I Need the Landowner's Permission for My Pitch?

by Lorraine
(Swansea)

Cream compact catering van with customers at the serving hatch on a quiet dead-end street

Cream compact catering van with customers at the serving hatch on a quiet dead-end street

I am setting up a Mob catering service and have applied to Planning for the pitch.
This is on a road, however the road is a dead end.

I have had a response from Planning to say my application is invalid because I need permission from the land owner which is Highways.

Aren't they all under the same umbrella?

I thought I read on the local council website that I submit my application and they then liaise with all relevant departments?

So, why have they send me this response?

So much red tape ...... it's infuriating!!

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Sep 23, 2026
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by: MobCater

I can hear the frustration, and you are not the first person to run into this. It feels like one council should be one council, but planning, highways and licensing are separate legal functions with separate jobs, even when they sit under the same roof and share a website. The bit about them liaising is true up to a point, but it does not stretch to them getting a third party's permission on your behalf.

Here is what is actually happening. Planning decides whether the land can be used the way you want to use it. It does not own the land, and it cannot say yes on behalf of whoever does. That dead end road, even a quiet one, is almost certainly adopted highway, and the highway authority owns it. So before planning will look at a change of use, they want to see that the landowner, in your case Highways, is willing to let you sit there. That is why the application came back as invalid, not because anyone is being awkward, but because a key permission is missing from the file.

On top of that there is a third thing that catches a lot of people out. In Swansea every street needs street trading consent under Schedule 4 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, and Swansea works on two zones, the city centre inner zone and an outer zone covering everywhere else. Where the pitch is on council land, they will want written permission from the estates or highways side as part of that consent, which is the same box you are trying to tick now.

My honest advice is to go straight to the highways or estates team in writing and ask the plain question: will you give me permission to trade from this spot? If the answer is no, everything else falls away and you have saved yourself the planning fee. If it is a trunk road rather than a local one, the landowner is the Welsh Government's agent, not the council at all, so it is worth confirming who actually owns your bit of tarmac first. And do not forget to register as a food business with the council at least 28 days before you trade, that part is free and separate again.

It is a lot of doors to knock on, I know, but once you have the landowner on side the rest tends to follow.

Good luck with it

David

Disclaimer: This is general advice for UK mobile catering. Licensing and land permissions vary between councils, and some roads are trunk roads managed separately, so always check with your local authority and the relevant landowner before you commit.

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