Do You Need Planning Permission for a Glamping Site? The Answer Most People Get Wrong

Type "planning permission for glamping" into Google and you'll fall down a rabbit hole of council jargon, forum horror stories, and blog posts that all seem to disagree with each other.

It's no wonder most people considering a small site on their land assume the answer is: yes, obviously, and it'll take a year and cost a fortune.

Here's the bit that gets missed. For a lot of small sites, it isn't true.

The route nobody mentions first

Buried in the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 is a provision — known in planning circles as a paragraph 5 exemption — that lets certain organisations certify small sites without the landowner needing to go through the full planning process at all. Up to five units. No site licence. No months in the planning queue.

This isn't a loophole. It's been part of UK law for over sixty years, built specifically so small, low-impact sites don't need the same process as a housing development or a 200-pitch holiday park.

The organisations able to certify sites this way are known as exempted organisations — camping and caravanning clubs that have been granted the authority to do it. Wanderlust Camping Club is one of them. Site owners still notify the local planning authority, and the council retains the right to object. But for most small, well-run sites on suitable land, that objection never comes.

Where planning permission actually is required

To be clear, this route isn't a way around planning permission altogether — it's a different, more proportionate legal path for genuinely small setups. Full planning permission is still the right route if you're looking at:

• More than five units
• Permanent structures with fixed foundations rather than movable units
• Large-scale development with new roads, car parks, or extensive groundworks
• Change of use that goes well beyond seasonal, low-impact camping or glamping

If any of that describes your plans, the certified exemption isn't the answer, and a planning consultant is worth talking to early.

Why the confusion persists

Most of what comes up when you search this topic is written from the perspective of large-scale developments or written by people who've only encountered the full planning process. It's not wrong, exactly — it's just answering a different question than the one most small landowners are actually asking.

If you own a few acres and are picturing five shepherd's huts, not a fifty-pitch holiday park, the planning permission process most articles describe was never really built for you. The exemption route was.

What "certified" actually means in practice

Certification isn't a rubber stamp. Exempted organisations like Wanderlust vet every site before it's approved — checking access, drainage, safety, and suitability — because the certification carries their name and their standards. It's a slower process than "no rules at all," and a considerably faster one than full planning permission.

That's really the trade-off: less bureaucracy, but not less scrutiny. Which, if you're planning to run a site people will actually want to stay at, is probably the right balance anyway.

Thinking about turning a corner of your land into a small camping or glamping site? Get in touch to find out whether the certified exemption route could work for you.