England’s Overnight Campervan Trial: Is It Actually Legal?

Written by Nigel Marsh — Founder, mYminiBreak and Norfolk Camping CIC

The Good News: England Is Finally Taking Vans Seriously

From 16 July to 14 September 2026, Forestry England is running a trial allowing self-contained campervans and motorhomes to stay overnight in selected forest car parks across England.

For anyone who has spent time in the vanlife community, this feels significant. Scotland has had its Stay the Night scheme for years. France has Aires de service on almost every country road. England has had laybyes.

The direction of travel is right. Getting vans off road verges, into designated spaces, near some form of facilities — that is a positive development and I mean that genuinely.

But I have been operating campsites in England for a long time. I run Norfolk Camping CIC as a recognised exempt organisation — a formal status that originates in the Public Health Act 1936. When I looked at the legal framework underpinning this trial, I found something the vanlife community needs to know.

A booking confirmation is not a site licence. And no organisation has the authority to make it one.

Layer One: Class BC Permitted Development

In July 2023, the government introduced a new permitted development right for England known as Class BC, fully operative from 25 July 2024. It allows a landowner to use their land as a temporary campsite for up to 60 days per calendar year, up to 50 pitches, without full planning permission.

The conditions are non-negotiable:

• Toilet and waste disposal facilities must be provided on-site before opening
• Written notification to the Local Planning Authority must be submitted before each season, with a site plan showing facility details and operating dates
• The right cannot be used on Sites of Special Scientific Interest, scheduled monuments, or listed buildings
• Flood Zone 2 or 3 sites require prior LPA approval
• Any site that could significantly affect a European protected habitat — SAC, SPA, or Ramsar — requires a full Habitats Regulations Assessment under the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017

Class BC is a genuine planning instrument. When its conditions are properly satisfied, it works. The problem is whether it applies to the Forestry England trial locations at all.

England’s ancient forests are not ordinary land. The trial locations sit on or directly adjacent to land carrying SSSI designation, National Landscape (AONB) status, or European protected habitat catchment zones. Class BC is explicitly excluded from SSSIs. Wendover Woods sits within the Chilterns National Landscape. Gisburn Forest is within the Forest of Bowland AONB. Several locations fall within SAC or SPA catchment zones requiring mandatory Habitats Regulations Assessment.

The most ecologically protected land in England is precisely the land Class BC cannot touch.

Layer Two: The Public Health Act 1936 and the Caravan Sites Act 1960

This is where the legal framework reaches back nearly 90 years — and where the argument becomes unanswerable.

The Public Health Act 1936, Section 269 is the founding legislation for overnight camping regulation in England. It governs moveable dwelling sites — tents, tipis, and temporary structures — and gives local authorities the power to license them. Critically, it also established the concept of recognised exempt organisations: formally appointed bodies whose governance, membership standards, and operational oversight are sufficient to operate outside the standard licensing requirement.

These are not self-declared exemptions. They are formal government-recognised statuses. The organisations holding them — including the Camping and Caravanning Club, and bodies such as Norfolk Camping CIC — were appointed through a defined process. That appointment has legal weight that a press release does not.

The Caravan Sites Act 1960 then extended the same principle to caravans, campervans, and motorhomes. It created a site licence requirement for any location used for overnight stays by caravans, and carried forward the exempt organisation framework from the 1936 Act into the caravan-specific context.

Both Acts operate entirely independently of planning law. Class BC addresses planning permission only. It does not mention the Public Health Act 1936. It does not mention the Caravan Sites Act 1960. It creates no site licence. It appoints no exempt organisations. It changes nothing about either Act.

A Forestry England car park that hypothetically satisfied Class BC would still need to satisfy the 1936 Act and the 1960 Act before a single vanner could sleep there lawfully. It satisfies neither.

Layer Three: No Organisation Has Special Authority

This is the point that closes the argument entirely.

No organisation below the Secretary of State has the authority to declare a plot suitable for overnight camping outside the legal process that applies to every other landowner. Forestry England is an executive arm of the Forestry Commission — a non-ministerial government department. It does not hold Secretary of State powers. It cannot issue itself a decision notice. It is subject to exactly the same planning and ecology requirements as any private landowner wishing to operate a temporary campsite.

And even the Secretary of State is bound by the same framework. Ecology documentation is not discretionary — it is the determination. It must be produced per site, per application. Seven geographically separate locations, each with different SSSI designations, different SAC and SPA catchment zones, different drainage catchments, different flora and fauna assessments — these cannot be resolved by a single corporate decision or a summer press announcement. Each site requires its own survey. Each site requires its own assessment. Each site requires its own decision notice.

Without those decision notices, the legal authority to operate a campsite at those locations does not exist — regardless of the organisation making the invitation.

Does a Booking Confirmation Make It Legal?

No.

When a vanner books via the Forestry England website, they do everything right. They plan ahead, pre-book, pay, receive a confirmation, arrive on time, follow the instructions, leave no trace. They act in perfect good faith.

And they may still be sleeping unlawfully — not because of anything they have done wrong, but because the organisation that invited them has not secured the legal authority to extend that invitation. Good faith does not create legal authority the host has not established through the correct process.

What Properly Licensed Overnight Camping Looks Like

A properly operated campervan site in England will have all relevant instruments in place before a single van arrives:

• A Caravan Sites Act 1960 site licence from the local authority, or recognised exempt organisation status under Schedule 1
• Recognised exempt association status under the Public Health Act 1936 for any tented or moveable dwelling use
• Class BC notification submitted to the LPA (where the land qualifies), or full planning consent
• Habitats Regulations clearance where the site is near European protected habitats

At mYminiBreak, our campervan pitches in North Norfolk operate under Norfolk Camping CIC’s recognised exempt organisation status — a formal appointment with legal standing under the Public Health Act 1936 and the Caravan Sites Act 1960. Every overnight stay is lawful. Guests do not need to wonder whether the paperwork is in place. It is.

What Should Vanners Ask Before They Book?

One question. Ask it every time:

Does this site hold a recognised exempt organisation status under the Public Health Act 1936 or the Caravan Sites Act 1960, or a local authority site licence?

If the operator cannot answer that question clearly and in the affirmative, the stay may be unlawful regardless of how the booking page looks. A well-designed website and an official-sounding trial name are not substitutes for legal authority established through the correct process.

The Bottom Line

England’s overnight campervan movement is growing. That is good. More lawful options, less pressure on laybyes, more infrastructure for a community that has been under-served for too long.

But good intentions do not create legal authority.

The Public Health Act 1936 has governed overnight camping in England for nearly 90 years. The Caravan Sites Act 1960 has governed campervans and motorhomes for over 60. Class BC arrived in 2024 as a planning instrument that addresses neither. And no organisation — however large, however official, however well-intentioned — has the authority to bypass the ecology documentation and decision notice process that the law requires of everyone equally.

The 1936 Act has not moved.

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