About

David Acreman, the writer and publisher, of Field to Farm has been involved in planning for over 30 years in various capacities mostly as a consultant to the agricultural industry. This book was written to redress the balance between the planning system and the individual with regard to agricultural planning matters.

All of the planning officers or planning consultants I have ever encountered have been negative about everything concerning planning. The only information they give out is what you can’t do, nothing positive, the planning system was set up to serve the people in the community. However it seems that the people seem to be ignored in the planning process, only planning matters are taken into account not people. It is stated in various planning documents that people should come first in any planning process, but as it is controlled by local planning authorities who seem to lack common sense or judgement they stick to the letter of the planning law. The reason the system is so difficult to deal with is everybody has an axe to grind particularly on planning matters. If someone was going to build something near to where you live, you would like your say.

If you decided to object or have an input you could write a letter of objection. If your objection was not on planning law, (how would you know what a planning objection was?) it would be disregarded. The other thing you could do is have a word with your local councillor who in turn will lean on the planning manager. This pressure will trickle down to the junior members of the team, the planning officers. These are the people you deal with directly. You can have an amicable meeting and agree things that you can do and the following week he will be denying he said anything. He will then feed you misinformation or even lies to try to dissuade you from pursuing a course of action or an application. This book is unique it tells you what you can do regardless of what local planners say, and they cannot stop you.

Field to Farm / David Acreman Have been in many publications including:

  • Farmers Guardian
  • Farmers Weekly
  • Country Smallholder
  • Smallholder Magazine
  • Horse and Hound

The book cannot cover every circumstance or eventuality so sometimes I’m needed to fill in the gaps. You are more than welcome to use the forum on this site where I will endeavor to answer any questions that you might have (usually within a few hours!). We also have a good community of like minded members who can also assist and share their experiences.