Horse keeping in Urban and Peri-Urban Areas: New Conditions for Physical Planning in Sweden

An increasing number of land use conflicts involving planning practice, equine activities and businesses and neighbouring landowners and residents have occurred in Swedish peri-urban areas. In a case study the disturbances and benefits arising from horses experienced by residents in two different areas of Sweden were investigated, together with a study of the attitudes of local planners to horse keeping near residential areas and subsequent policy documents. The results from the study found few conflicts between residents and horse keeping but revealed diverging practice and policy between municipalities, which may create a legal insecurity for the involved stakeholders. The results were mirrored in the broader perspective of spatial planning facing new challenges in the wake of the urban-rural diffusion. This was obtained by means of current planning theory discourse in examining the effects of set-back distance from rural contexts when applied in urban areas. The study illustrated a planning problem where the planning tools for managing this issue has been built on the urban-rural dichotomy providing unclear planning practice and policy in a peri-urban context. The result may be used to elucidate the character of this issue in the search for suitable planning tools in peri urban areas.