New UK planning rules to block new takeaways near schools
Key Points
- Councils in England must refuse hot food takeaway applications within around 400 metres of a school, or about a five-minute walk where the route is difficult.
- The rule carries one exception, for sites inside a designated town centre.
- A second test lets councils refuse takeaways anywhere, including town centres, where a cluster is already harming local health.
- The policy took effect on 17 August 2026 and applies to applications and appeals councils have yet to decide.
- Around 65 planning authorities already ran 400-metre zones of their own; the rule now covers all of England.
Councils in England must now refuse planning permission for hot food takeaways within a short walk of schools.
The rule sits in the new National Planning Policy Framework, which the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published on Monday (17 August).
Policy HC5 directs decision-makers to refuse takeaway proposals within reasonable walking distance of schools and other places where children and young people congregate. The only exception applies where the site sits within a designated town centre.
For this policy, reasonable walking distance means around 400 metres, or around five minutes’ walk time where topography, route availability and quality, or physical barriers would prevent or discourage walking the full 400 metres.
Councils have also been told to refuse applications in locations where evidence shows a concentration of takeaways is having an adverse impact on local health, pollution or anti-social behaviour.
That test carries no distance threshold and no town centre exception, so it will impact high streets.
What it replaces
Exclusion zones already exist within the regulations, but only where individual councils wrote them into local plans.
A review of health-focused takeaway planning policies in England found 65 authorities using a 400-metre distance, three London boroughs using 200 metres and one authority using 800 metres, with a handful defining zones by walking time instead.
London planning policy has blocked new hot food takeaways within 400 metres walking distance of a school entrance or exit since 2021.
Councils outside those areas previously had no national policy to lean on when refusing.
The framework’s decision-making policies became material considerations on the day of publication, which brings applications and appeals already lodged but not yet determined into scope.
Existing takeaways may carry on trading, since the policy governs new planning permission rather than businesses already established.
