Thanks everyone

mcginty, you don't need permission to keep animals on your own land. However, you can't site a caravan, let alone live in it, without planning consent. Nor can you build a farm shed, animal shelter....all need planning I'm afraid. It's a pain in the a***. Horses are even more difficult as they aren't classed as agricultural here, unless you can prove they are working on the farm/smallholding horses.
I'm thinking for the moment we'll stay in the caravan until the end of summer. Not take on too much that I can't manage alone, and try and find a house close by. That way the pressure is off me until I see how my back is. My husband helps me a lot, but he has just been told he may be going from 12 hr shifts to 8, so that means he will be away more days per week

Maybe in the future we'll get to live there....