Section 336 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 defines agricultureas “horticulture, fruit growing, seed growing, dairy farming, the breeding and keeping of livestock (any creature kept for the production of food, wool, skins or fur, or for the purpose of its use in the farming of land), the use of land as grazing land, meadow land, osier land, market gardens and nursery grounds, and the use of land for woodlands where that use is ancillary to the farming of land for other agricultural purposes, and ‘agricultural’ shall be construed accordingly.”
The grazing of horses on agricultural land does not constitute a material change from a former agricultural use, however anything beyond the grazing of horses would require planning permission. .
Land can be said to be used for grazing if horses are turned onto it with the purpose of feeding them from it, but not if they are kept on it for some other purpose (such as exercise or recreation or breeding ) when grazing is seen as completely incidental and inevitable and where any feeding takes place other than from the grazing land, i.e. an alternative food source brought onto the site/land from elsewhere.
So unless its purely for grazing its previously developed land and subject to para 89 of the Framework etc
