Section 39 Exemption of certain classes of development

Notwithstanding anything in the last preceding section, an industrial development certificate shall not be required if the industrial floor space to be created by the development in question, together with any other industrial floor space created or to be created by any related development, does not exceed five thousand square feet, excluding, where an industrial development certificate has been issued in respect of any related development, any floor space created or to be created by that development or by development carried out, or for which planning permission has been granted, before the issue of that certificate.

Regulations made for the purposes of the last preceding section by the Board of Trade may direct that no industrial development certificate shall be required in respect of the erection, in any area prescribed by or under the regulations, of industrial buildings of any such class as may be so prescribed, or in respect of a change of use whereby premises in any such area, not being an industrial building of a class so prescribed, will become an industrial building of such a class.

In this section “industrial floor space ” means floor space comprised in an industrial building or industrial buildings of any of the prescribed classes, and “related development” means development relating to the same building or another building in the same group, being development which has been carried out on or after the first day of April, nineteen hundred and sixty, or for which planning permission has been granted since that date; an4 in this subsection “group ” means a group of contiguous or adjacent buildings used as parts of a single undertaking, and any reference to development relating to a building is a reference to the erection, extension, alteration or re-erection of the building or to a change of use of the whole or part of the building.