Bit of experience of this.. 0.5ac of our 0.7ac "garden" was ploughed arable when we bought the property... the 0.5ac is road frontage to the side of the house as well so a highly visible situation for change.
Also converted a separate 8ac of flat arable to hedged/treed grassland for horses at the same time.
Things were made a lot easier at the house in that we bought the place (16yrs ago) from the county council as an ex-smallholders property. They placed the .5ac section of arable with it in order to make it easier to sell as a domestic property. Thankfully when the garden establishment was queried this was judged to have been sufficient intent by the council to make it a residential garden so we were allowed to do so without legal challenge.
Of course there were a few raised eyebrows and possibly some calls to the council when we started but of course these would have been rebutted due to the circumstances and we never heard any more.
In any case although it is 100% a garden as far as we're concerned I set out being careful to use farm type fencing and all natural hedge/tree planting. The grass planted was a set-aside mix and if left unmowed for a couple of weeks has a similar look to grazed paddock. I have done this just in case there was ever future hassle. I have seen cases where quite well established gardens have been dismantled on the order of the council where extended.
On the 8ac we made massive changes with fencing, planting and buildings. Despite all this being done involving the council re planning for the buildings and discussions over the natural species of hedges and trees (about 150 trees and 3000 hedging plants) there were folks who were over interested in what we were doing for reasons that I couldn't understand.
I would say think hard about your motives for complaining about this if you do. Is garden any worse than a few rusty tractors or a rough old pig shed? What sort of garden do you think they want to make? Similar to how I describe ours or flower beds, seats, fountains, kids toys etc??
Hope there is something useful in there.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Mon 29 Mar 10 at 12:53
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Change of use of a field 
Change of use of a field 