Farmers lose weeks because a website quoted English permitted-development class numbers. In Scotland, agricultural buildings on a qualifying holding usually sit under Class 18 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order — not English Class 6. If another page on the internet (or an older article of ours) says Class 6 for a Midlothian shed, treat that heading as wrong.
Class 18 is permitted development, which still means paperwork. You lodge a prior notification with the planning authority before you dig. The council can ask for more information or tell you the proposal is not permitted development. It is not a silent green light.
What we will not pin to this page
We will not publish a neat list of maximum square metres, heights and distances from roads or houses as if they were our product spec. Those limits live in the current Order and in how your council reads “agricultural holding”, “livestock”, and proximity to protected buildings. They change. A blog that treats 465 m² as gospel is doing you a disservice.
Check the holding size, the proposed ground area, the height, the distance from a metalled road, and whether anyone lives close enough for amenity to matter. Your architect, agent or a planning consultant does that reading. We fabricate steel.
What we will do
Once you have sizes we issue drawings an agent can attach: plan, elevations, a simple specification note that the frame is EXC2 hot-rolled steel detailed in Penicuik. That package is what prior notification desks actually want from a fabricator. They do not want a DWG from you on day one, and they do not want us to write the planning statement.
Midlothian Council, East Lothian, West Lothian, Scottish Borders, Fife and City of Edinburgh each run their own portal. Name the council on the form. We still do not lodge the notice.
When Class 18 probably does not apply
Private equestrian use, a building that is really a house by another name, a commercial workshop with no agricultural trade, or a site that is not a qualifying holding. Change of use is a different letter. If you are unsure, say so — we will still price the steel and we will still tell you to get an agent before you break ground.
Grants, said accurately
FFIS does not fund sheds. Sheds, roofs and concrete are ineligible under that scheme. Do not write a farm-shed quote into an FFIS claim and expect it to survive.
The Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme can fund buildings for eligible crofters, subject to that scheme’s rules and your croft status. That is not a promise we can underwrite. Ask the people who administer CAGS, then come back for steel.
Building warrant is a second conversation
Planning permission (or prior notification) is not a building warrant. Structural agricultural buildings still have to be legal steel — EXC2, UKCA, insurable. That is why we exist. Your local authority building standards team is a different inbox from planning. We coordinate the fabrication side; we do not run the warrant for you unless an agent has already scoped it.
A longer technical article sits at the planning blog post. Prefer this page for farmer language. For the building itself start at agricultural sheds Scotland or the sheds money page. Send width, length, eaves, use, postcode and a photo — not a planning essay.