In article ,
Zhang Dawei wrote:

[...] But, until you have done that, the land is supposed to
be used only for agricultural purposes.

Is there some official specification of what "agricultural purposes"
means somewhere? The reason I ask is that it is clear that certain
things are clearly agricultural in purpose and others are not, but
there may be a grey area in which there is uncertainty which official
specifications or guidelines should be able to help make less grey
somewhat. So, what about:

No. The usual interpretation is growing crops for sale, but some
planning officers can get a bit stroppy. If it had been feasible,
I was hoping to buy a field and turn it into woodland; while they
might have objected to change of use, I was intending to ensure
that there were suitable trees that would be valuable for timber
in 1-200 years (e.g. walnuts), and probably for coppicing in less.
But that would have been on a scale where I could have justified
it as a private commercial venture.

I doubt very much if using 1/10 acre as a dog run or growing even
agricultural crops for personal use would be regarded as acceptable.
And it's not the planning officer that you need to convince, if
push comes to shove, it's the courts.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.