Campsite for sale in the UK: how planning limits on opening months and pitch numbers decide what you can earn

Contents

1. How the limits turn into income
2. Which regime your campsite sits in
3. The site licence: when it is needed and how it is issued
4. Why an old licence history does not secure the numbers
5. Ten years of breach: when the council can no longer act
6. Tax on the sale: the seller's relief

1. How the limits turn into income

Short answer: Revenue is pitches multiplied by open nights, by occupancy, by the nightly rate. The planning permission and the licence fix the first two figures, so a buyer who pays for a number the documents do not allow pays for income that cannot be earned.

A campsite sells nights on pitches. Take the pitches the site may hold, multiply by the nights it may open, and you reach the ceiling of what it can sell. Occupancy and the nightly rate then decide how much of that ceiling the owner reaches.

Only occupancy and rate move with the owner's effort. The ceiling moves only with a decision of the council or a tribunal. That is why the two documents setting the ceiling come before the accounts in a campsite purchase.

The legal route to a pitch limit and an opening-season limit is the licence condition on occasions when caravans are stationed and on the total number at one time (Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, s.5(1)(a)). Planning conditions can set the same kind of limit for any campsite, including tent sites.

Illustrative figures. A seller advertises 40 pitches, open 1 March to 30 November, with 50 percent occupancy and £28 a night. These are working numbers for the sum, not market data. The seller's booking records give the real ones.

The season runs 31 + 30 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 30 = 275 nights. Pitch-nights on offer are 40 × 275 = 11,000. At 50 percent, 5,500 pitch-nights sell. At £28 that is £154,000.

Now suppose the permission allows only 36 pitches, and a condition closes the site from 1 October to 31 March, so it opens 1 April to 30 September. April to September is 30 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 31 + 30 = 183 nights.

Check the table. The pitch gap alone costs £154,000 − £138,600 = £15,400. The season gap alone costs £154,000 − £102,480 = £51,520. The two do not add up to £66,920, because the four missing pitches also lose the missing months. The true joint loss is £154,000 − £92,232 = £61,768.

The loss is larger in profit terms if costs do not shrink with the season. Ask the seller which costs stop in a closed month and which continue, and read the answer against the accounts.

A smaller change shows how a condition can be worth buying. A planning condition in one tribunal case barred occupation of camping pods from 1 October to 31 March, and the council later varied it to 1 November to 31 March ([2023] UKFTT 995 (TC), para 6(5)–(8), (16)). That adds the 31 days of October. On the same 40 pitches, 40 × 31 = 1,240 pitch-nights, of which half sell, is 620 nights. At £28 that is £17,360 of yearly revenue.

So the seller's season is the first fact to pin down, then the pitch count, then who allowed each and when.

One more habit helps with the price. Ask the seller for a nightly rate and occupancy for each of the last three seasons, split by pitch type. Divide revenue by the permitted nights and the permitted pitches. If the result looks high, the site may have been used beyond its permission, and the revenue is then at risk of falling with the first enforcement letter.

2. Which regime your campsite sits in

Short answer: A UK campsite runs under one of four regimes: full planning permission with conditions, a site licence for caravans, a short-use permitted development right, or a small-site exemption. Each sets a different ceiling, so identify the regime before you read a single figure.

The advert word "campsite" covers sites with very different legal footing. The table sets the main routes side by side.

The 2015 Order here is the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015. Its title tells you it applies to England. For a site in Wales or Scotland, ask the local planning authority which national order applies and to give you the text in writing.

The 1960 Act applies across England, Wales and Scotland (s.1(1)), but not all of it reads the same in each. The licence and its conditions are the same kind of document everywhere.

Identify the regime by asking three questions of the seller, each answered with a document.

• What was the planning permission for? Ask for the decision notice, with every condition and every later variation, and the approved site plan.
• Does the site take caravans, motorhomes or tourers? If yes, ask for the current licence.
• Is any day or pitch used under a permitted development right or an exemption? If yes, ask for the notices sent to the council and any certificate relied on.

A mixed answer is normal. A site can hold a planning permission for 30 tent pitches, a licence for 20 caravan pitches, and a few days each year of extra use under a permitted development right. The ceiling is then the sum of three separate limits, each written down in a different place.

3. The site licence: when it is needed and how it is issued

Short answer: An occupier may not use land as a caravan site without a valid site licence, and the council can issue one only if planning permission for caravan use exists. A buyer needs to know who holds the licence, what the licence covers on the ground, and whether its numbers match the planning permission.

The rule is in the first section of the Act: the occupier of land may not cause or permit any part of it to be used as a caravan site without a valid site licence (s.1(1)). Using the land without a licence is a summary offence (s.1(2)).

The Act defines a caravan site as land on which a caravan is stationed for human habitation, together with any land used in conjunction with it (s.1(4)). A toilet block, a drive, a field used for overflow parking and a laundry on land used with the pitches all fall inside that definition.

Check the licensed area against the land you are buying. If the licence plan stops short of a field that the seller uses for pitches, the field is either outside the licence or the plan is out of date. Either answer changes the price.

The liable person is the occupier, meaning the person entitled to possession of the land through an estate or interest. For land of 400 square yards or less let under a tenancy for use as a caravan site, it is the person who would be entitled to possession but for the tenant's rights, that is the landlord or site owner, not the tenant (s.1(3)).

For a limited company that owns the site, the company is the occupier and holds the licence. If you buy the company's shares, the licence stays with the company. If you buy assets from a seller who holds the licence personally, the licence must move.

The council may issue a licence only if the applicant holds planning permission for caravan use under planning law, not merely a permission given by a development order (s.3(3)). That detail closes a route: a site cannot rest on a permitted development right for caravans and expect a licence to follow.

The application goes in writing to the council for the area where the land lies. It must identify the land and give any other information the authority reasonably requires (s.3(1)–(2)).

Two time limits bind the council. Where the applicant already holds planning permission, it shall issue the licence within two months of receiving the information, or a longer period agreed in writing. Where planning permission comes after the application, the licence must follow within six weeks of that permission, or a longer agreed period (s.3(4)–(5)).

In England the picture has one more layer. For a relevant protected site application, the authority may charge a fee and may make the decision discretionary instead of mandatory, and regulations may give a right of appeal to the tribunal (s.3(5A)–(5F)). The buyer of a residential park meets this more than the buyer of a holiday campsite, so ask the council whether the site is treated as a protected site.

A further bar sits in the Act. An authority must not issue a licence to a person who, to its knowledge, had a licence revoked under the Act less than three years earlier (s.3(6)).

For a share purchase, read that bar as a question about the company. If the company's licence was revoked in the last three years, the company cannot be issued another one on the council's knowledge of the revocation. Ask the seller for the licence history, including any revocation, and ask the council to confirm it in writing.

Put the steps in a buyer's order.

• Find out who holds the licence today. The name on the document must match the seller, or the company, whose shares or assets you are buying.
• Find the licence date and the planning permission it relies on. A licence issued on a permission that was later varied needs a check that the numbers still agree.
• Hold the licence area against the land you are buying, including any land used in conjunction with the pitches.
• Ask whether a fresh application is needed.

4. Why an old licence history does not secure the numbers

Short answer: The Court of Appeal has held that a site licence cannot approve pitches that clash with the planning permissions it rests on or with an enforcement notice. A big number in the licence history of a campsite tells you what once was allowed, not what you may run today.

Haytop Country Park Limited v Amber Valley Borough Council ([2025] EWCA Civ 1442, judgment of 12 November 2025) asked whether a caravan site licence can authorise pitches inconsistent with the planning permissions it relies on, or with an enforcement notice on unlawful operational development (para 16).

The history in that case is the pattern a buyer meets. Planning permissions of 1952 and 1966 allowed up to 60 caravans, and a licence of 1968 imposed a limit of 60. By the April 2022 licence the number allowed was three (paras 7, 41, 62). Six is one tenth of sixty (6 ÷ 60 = 0.1), and the final figure in the litigation was six.

The steps in that litigation show how numbers move on appeal. The First-tier Tribunal raised the licence to 18 plots when the park sought 36. The Upper Tribunal added three pitches to the three licensed, bringing the total to six. The unlawful works behind the dispute involved 121 trees felled and 27 hardstandings (paras 9, 15, 42, 63–64, 75(1)).

The Court of Appeal's reasoning comes in three parts that matter to a buyer.

• The licence determination had to be made consistently with the decision on the enforcement notice appeal. The licence should not have approved any plots subject to the enforcement notice (para 115).
• The decision to grant the licence had to take into account the terms of the 1952 and 1966 permissions (para 116).
• The First-tier Tribunal was wrong to treat the enforcement notices as irrelevant to site licensing. The court upheld the Deputy President of the Lands Chamber on that point (para 117).

Put together, the case tells a buyer that three documents have to agree: the planning permission, any enforcement notice and the licence. If an enforcement notice sits over part of the site, the licence cannot be read as approving the pitches it covers.

A buyer reading a seller's pack should therefore do three things.

1. Ask for every enforcement notice, breach notice and warning letter the council has sent about the land, and for the outcome of each appeal.
2. Ask the seller for the pitch number in the current licence and for the date of that licence. A number from an earlier licence is history.
3. Ask the council to confirm in writing which permission supports the current licence number.

A site that looks like Haytop on paper, with a historic 60 and a current three or six, is priced on the current number. If the seller argues for the old number, the old permission's terms may still be relevant, because the court said a licensing decision must take them into account (para 116). That is an argument about how the council and tribunal decide, not a right to the number.

The reverse also helps a buyer. A site whose licence number equals its planning number equals the number of pitches on the ground is a site with three documents in agreement. Such agreement is the standard to look for.

5. Ten years of breach: when the council can no longer act

Short answer: For most breaches of planning control, including breach of a condition or a change of use that is not to a dwelling, the council cannot take enforcement action after ten years from the date of the breach. A certificate of lawful use can record that position, but only the certificate holds weight with a lender or a council.

Many campsites run past their conditions. A site opens in November because bookings come, or adds a few pitches in a corner. The question for a buyer is whether the council can still act.

Under section 171B(3) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, for any breach of planning control other than operations or a change of use to a single dwellinghouse, no enforcement action may be taken after ten years beginning with the date of the breach (s.171B(3)).

The period for building works differs. Section 171B(1) gives England ten years from substantial completion for operations without permission, and Wales four. England's period was changed from 25 April 2024 by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 and SI 2024/452 (s.171B(1) and its amendment note). For works finished before that date, ask the council which period it applies. Toilet blocks, tracks and hardstandings are operations.

The ten-year bar is a planning rule only. The licensing offences under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, using land as a caravan site without a licence (s.1) and breaching a licence condition (s.9), are separate offences, and the ten-year planning period does not cure them. The bar is also not final, even for planning, in two situations. Section 171B(4) does not stop a breach of condition notice being served where an enforcement notice is in effect. Nor does it stop further enforcement action if the authority took, or purported to take, action on the same breach in the previous four years.

Illustrative figures. A council serves a breach of condition notice on 3 March 2024 about winter openings. Four years from that date runs to 3 March 2028. Counted from 6 November 2026, that is about sixteen months in which the council can still act on the same breach, whatever the age of the original breach.

Ask the seller for every council letter about the site from the last four years, including letters that did not use the word "enforcement". The test in the section is whether the authority took or purported to take action, so a letter that asked the owner to stop a use belongs in the folder.

The certificate of lawful use

A person can apply to the local planning authority for a certificate that an existing use, or a failure to comply with a condition, is lawful. The authority issues it if satisfied on the information provided, and otherwise refuses (s.191(1), (4)).

A failure to comply with a condition is lawful at any time if the time for enforcement has expired and it does not contravene an enforcement notice or breach of condition notice in force (s.191(3)). The certificate is therefore the document that turns a seller's claim of ten years of winter openings into a record the council has accepted.

What a buyer does with that:

• If the seller's pitches or season rest on the ten-year argument, ask for the certificate. A seller without one is offering an opinion.
• If the seller has a certificate, read what it covers. A certificate for "use as a campsite" and one for "use as a campsite with 60 caravans from 1 March to 30 November" are different assets.
• If there is no certificate and the seller will not apply, a buyer can make the application a condition of completion, with a price adjustment if it fails.

The question for a planning solicitor is specific: "On the facts of our out-of-season openings, does the ten-year period in section 171B(3) run, and from which date?" Whether a pattern of seasonal openings counts as one continuing breach depends on the site's own history, and the answer decides the price.

6. Tax on the sale: the seller's relief

Short answer: A seller's tax relief depends on how the business is held and for how long, and its rate has changed twice in two years. Ask the seller's tax adviser about it and do not price it as certain.

This section is general information, and it gives no personal tax advice.

The seller's relief

HMRC's Business Asset Disposal Relief is charged at 18 percent for disposals from 6 April 2026, 14 percent for disposals from 6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026, and 10 percent for disposals on or before 5 April 2025 (gov.uk, "Business Asset Disposal Relief").

The conditions differ by what is sold.

• Selling or closing a business. The seller must be a sole trader or business partner and have owned the business for at least 2 years up to the sale date. On closure, the assets must be disposed of within 3 years.
• Selling shares. The seller must be an employee or office holder for at least 2 years. The company must mainly trade or be a trading group holding company. For non-EMI shares, the seller must hold at least 5 percent of the shares and voting rights as a personal company for 2 years.

Illustrative figures. Take a qualifying gain of £300,000 and apply each rate to it.

Between the first and last rows the tax rises by £24,000 (£54,000 less £30,000). Between the second and third it rises by £12,000. A seller who says "I will sell after the tax year" has made a price decision, so check whether a date has moved while you were negotiating. Not every seller qualifies, and the figures above only show how the rate applies to one assumed gain.

The buyer does not claim the seller's relief. It is still useful to know, because it shapes how a seller behaves about timing and about whether to sell shares or assets. Ask the seller's adviser which route is on offer rather than guessing.

Sources

All pages were retrieved on 2026-11-06.

• Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, section 1: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/8-9/62/section/1
• Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, section 3: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/8-9/62/section/3
• Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, section 5: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/8-9/62/section/5
• Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, section 9: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/8-9/62/section/9
• Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, Schedule 1: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/8-9/62/schedule/FIRST
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 171B: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/8/section/171B
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 191: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/8/section/191
• Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, Schedule 2 Part 4: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/596/schedule/2/part/4
• Business Asset Disposal Relief (GOV.UK): https://www.gov.uk/business-asset-disposal-relief
• Haytop Country Park Limited v Amber Valley Borough Council [2025] EWCA Civ 1442: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2025/1442
• Acorn Venture Ltd v HMRC [2023] UKFTT 995 (TC): https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukftt/tc/2023/995