(Planning) Permission to Party? Planning Implications of the Battle for Brockwell Park

Summer festival season has arrived in London, with tens of thousands of people flocking to Brockwell Park in South London over the last two weekends to kick off the city’s series of park-based festivals. The Brockwell Park festivals, making up organiser Brockwell Live’s Summer Festival Series, are comprised of Wide Awake, Mighty Hoopla, Field Day, City Splash, Brockwell Bounce and Cross the Tracks (the “Brockwell Live Events”) – all of which took place in Brockwell Park over two weekends from 23 May to 1 June. 

The lead up to the Brockwell Live Events was not without its complications. As has been widely reported, a flurry of legal action in the weeks running up to the festivals had left a question mark over whether they would be going ahead at all, in light of a High Court challenge to the validity of the certificate which gave the Brockwell Live Events the go ahead.  

With the Brockwell Live Events now wrapped up, and while we await the publication of the High Court Judgment, we take this opportunity to reflect on the challenge, the planning dimensions of the subsequent decisions, and what this sequence of events might mean for the planning regime for multi-day festival events moving forwards. 

Legal Challenge

The Brockwell Live Events had been permitted under a certificate of lawfulness of proposed use or development (“CLOPUD”), falling within the scope of the permitted development rights under Schedule 2, Part 4, Class B of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development (England) Order 2015). 

This provision permits “the use of any land for any purpose for not more than 28 days in total in any calendar year […] and the provision on the land of any moveable structure for the purposes of the permitted use”. 

The original CLOPUD application had sought a certificate to cover a period between 13 May and 5 June 2025.

A challenge was brought by local campaign group ‘Protect Brockwell Park’ (“PBP”), who claimed that the London Borough of Lambeth (the “Council”) had acted unlawfully in allowing the Brockwell Live Events to go ahead within Class B permitted development rights, avoiding the need for the organisers to engage in the full planning permission application and consultation process.

PBP claimed that the decision to grant the CLOPUD application had been unlawful, as the section of the park to be fenced off and used for festival events under the Class B right (including days between the events and installation and de-installation time) was 37 days in total, rather than the permitted 28, and therefore that a full planning permission application – which would have provided further opportunity for community consultation and required further assessments as to the impact of the festivals on the park – ought to have been required. PBP’s concerns raised included those about the negative impact of large scale commercial events on Brockwell Park’s ecology: noting that the construction of high fences can disturb wildlife and that the increased footfall and use of heavy equipment compact the soil. 

The Lambeth Country Show, due to take place in Brockwell Park over 7 and 8 June, is to be held pursuant to a planning permission (the “LCS Permission”), and therefore falls outside the scope of the permitted development regime. That permission covers the period from 2 to 18 June, which includes time for the installation and de-installation of temporary infrastructure associated with the event.

16 May: CLOPUD High Court Decision

In his decision, which was handed down on 16 May but at the time of writing has not yet been published,  Mould J found that the CLOPUD issued by the Council allowing the Brockwell Live Events to take place within Class B permitted development rights was invalid, and that Lambeth Council had acted unlawfully and irrationally in issuing that certificate. This was on the basis that the change of use exceeded the legal limit under the permitted development regime. Accordingly, the certificate was quashed in relation to those events.

19 May: CLEUD Application 

Following that decision, the applicant called for the Brockwell Live Events to be cancelled on the basis that the quashing of the certificate under which the festivals had been approved left the events with no planning permission through which they could legally proceed. 

Three days following the hand-down of the judgment quashing the CLOPUD, Summer Events, who run Brockwell Live Events, submitted an urgent application for a certificate of lawfulness of existing use or development (“CLEUD”) on 19 May. This was granted on 22 May – one day before the first festival was due to be held, in a decision which paved the way for the Brockwell Live Events to go ahead. 

The CLEUD Application covered a period of 24 days, which including the festival days and the days required for the installation and de-installation of associated temporary structures and infrastructure, running from 12 May (the date that, it was accepted, the use had actually commenced) to 4 June when infrastructure solely associated with the Brockwell Live Events would be dismantled and removed.

In the supporting statement for the CLEUD Application, the applicant’s lawyers highlighted that together with the four-day ‘Pines and Needles’ event held in Brockwell Park in January 2025, the CLEUD application would bring the cumulative period of events held pursuant to the Class B permitted development rights to within the lawful limit of 28 non-consecutive days. 

In considering the question of whether the Brockwell Live Events could fall within the Class B permitted development right to proceed legally, the Officer’s Report relied on a legal opinion prepared by Matthew Reed KC and Rebecca Sage. There is a lot to unpack in the legal opinion and it is not considered in full here. However, its conclusions which informed the Officers Report and subsequently the Decision notice are worth noting, in finding that:  

1. It is possible for a GDPO permitted development right and an express use right to take effect on a single site (para 38):

“While there is no direct authority on the co-existence of GPDO use rights with an express 

temporary use right, there is no reason in principle why this cannot occur. Indeed, other 

forms of express permitted development right take effect where there is an express 

permission for a development on the same site. Householder permitted development rights, for example, exist where a planning permission exists for the house in question.”

1. An express permission can continue the use of land which has initially benefitted from a Class B right and that a temporary use proposed to continue beyond 28 days can benefit from Class B, and is not prevented as a matter of principle from doing so (para 30)

“while we note that there is the question of the simultaneous application of the LCS Permission and Class B rights, the continuation of the use on the Site under the Permission takes effect from the 2 June. In our view, this enables the continued authorisation of the use of the Site and does not affect the legality of reliance on the GPDO. The extension of the fencing to the west under the LCS Permission does not alter that conclusion – the LCS Permission covers the existing area which is the subject of the GPDO Permission.” (para 31)

“As a result, in our view, the de-installation of the parts of the temporary infrastructure associated with BL would be authorised under the LCS Permission. In those circumstances, the question of simultaneous application does not arise: the lawful use for events would continue under the LCS Permission without it being necessary to rely upon GPDO use rights following implementation of the LCS Permission.” (para 36)

1. Class B use rights may be relied upon alongside the rights granted in the LCS Permission to enable the dismantling of the temporary infrastructure solely associated with the Brockwell Live events (para 42). This is on the basis that while temporary infrastructure to be used only for the Brockwell Live Events will be removed from the site by 4 June, there is other infrastructure that will remain on site for use for the Lambeth Country show (i.e. fencing, lighting, staging).
2. In light of the above, there is no legal impediment to relying on Class B in this case in relation to those issues (para 28, 43)

The legal opinion concluded that, at para 44:

1. “The LCS Permission is capable of continuing the use initially granted permission under the GPDO for the purposes of public events
2. Even if it were not, this would not affect the ability to rely upon the GPDO use rights for the identified 28 day period. 
3. The LCS Permission authorises the dismantling of parts of the temporary infrastructure solely associated with BL.
4. Even if it did not, Class B use rights may be relied upon alongside the rights granted under the LCS Permission to enable that dismantling to take place.”

And that therefore, either the use and associated temporary structures benefit from permitted development rights under Class B for the period 12 May to 4 June or they benefit from permitted development rights between 12 May and 1 June and, thereafter, benefits from the LCS Permission’s rights (para 45).

In considering the findings of the legal opinion, the Officers Report – and subsequent Decision Notice – reached the same conclusion, finding that the existing use of land for temporary event use, including the installation and de-installation of moveable structures solely associated with the Brockwell Live Events to be lawful. This Decision has meant that the Brockwell Live Events of the past two weekends have been carried out in a lawful capacity pursuant to the Class B Permitted Development right alongside the express LCS permission (for the purposes of equipment dismantling). 

Takeaways

On the planning side, this case provides some interesting takeaways on the application of the permitted development regime and its co-existence and interactions with express permissions. In particular, it draws attention to the ability of an express permission to authorise the continuation of a (temporary) Class B permitted development right beyond the initial 28 day limit.

While the legal opinion found that ultimately no simultaneous application of the LCS permission and Class B use applied in the same site in practice, it was considered that this could, in theory, take place. It also therefore raises questions about the possibility of relying on permitted development rights concurrently and at the same site as those expressly permitted under a planning permission.  

The planning processes considered in this blog form just one part of a wider ongoing conversation. Indeed, the legal challenge has sparked a debate over the balance between cultural events and conservation – a theme which we might expect to see extrapolated and applied to other similar events due to take place across the capital this summer. 

While in this case, the Brockwell Live Events ultimately could take place legally due to the CLEUD Application, this decision is highly fact dependent and tied to the specificities of that particular case. The impact of a High Court judgment quashing a CLOPUD may pose a challenge to other organisations wishing to pursue a similar process for temporary events – relying on permitted development rights rather than go through the full planning application process. At the very least, increased scrutiny as to this kind of application and the specifics around the duration of any proposed change of use may be expected. We may see a trend towards full planning permission applications being made where the proposed event will bring the temporary use up against the 28 day limit to avoid potential challenges over any disparity in dates or timeframes for the installation and de-installation of associated infrastructure. 

Ultimately, it is interesting to see how a discreet question of administrative, planning law has captured the public’s attention, with both sides of the debate coming out to bat: highlighting the need to tread carefully when balancing environmental preservation and cultural events. 

Read more about our Planning and Environment team's expertise.