STROP GEAR!
Locals’ anger as Clarkson plans a farm shop at his Cotswolds idyll
HE gave his country estate the nickname Diddly Squat Farm because of its poor crop yields.
But Jeremy Clarkson’s attempt to increase its earning power by building a farm shop may prove just as unproductive.
Neighbours are furious about the TV presenter’s plans – saying they could kill off businesses in their village.
In letters of objection to the council they also claim the development would blight a designated area of outstanding natural beauty. And they are unnerved by a reference in the former Top Gear presenter’s planning application to the site’s ‘potential for occasional filmmaking’.
Tony Allan, 73, a parish councillor in Chadlington, West Oxfordshire, said: ‘The potential impact on the village store and butchers is a concern.
‘It may only have space to accommodate ten cars when it opens, but God alone knows how it will develop.
‘The Clarkson name will attract more people than that. People move to these kind of villages because they like them as they were. But we have seen new money coming into the Cotswolds – such as Soho Farmhouse, Daylesford organic farm shop and they risk changing the character of the communities.’
Mr Allan’s wife, Sue, is among those who have written to the council to object to the application. She said: ‘The suspicion is that the shed will be used more for a filming project rather than to support a genuine farm business.’
Clarkson, 59, filmed the destruction of a farmhouse on the site near Chipping Norton three years ago for Amazon Prime’s The Grand Tour, which he stars in alongside Richard Hammond and James May. He later submitted plans for a new property on the site. The
‘Life, death and form-filling’
former Top Gear presenter is currently filming a ‘ warts and all’ farming show for Prime.
In a newspaper column last month, he acknowledged the local opposition to his plans, saying: ‘I recently applied for planning permission to build a small barn on my farm, from which I could sell stuff that happens to be in season.
‘And I was told by a local lady last weekend that it will “kill the village”. I couldn’t see the logic, really. It wasn’t as though I’d applied for permission to do a low-level helicopter gunship strafing run down the high street. It’d just be a barn with some vegetables in it.’
But Michael Hinchliffe, another objector, said the farm shop would be ‘seen for miles around’ because of its elevated location adjacent to a main road and close to the entrance to a caravan site.
In his letter to the district council, he said: ‘ There is no evidence that this development will benefit farming or the local economy.’
Another villager, Dr Julie Ingram, wrote of her fears that the farm shop and shed could prove a ‘stepping stone to something that would be unacceptable’. She added: ‘The applicant’s current farm has enough buildings and land to accommodate these planned developments, there is no need for a new location.’
Alison Weaver, 73, who runs Slatters Butchers in Chadlington, said: ‘We get plenty of trade from people staying on the caravan site who walk down to us to get bacon and sausages for their breakfast. If he stocks meat he would take that trade away.
‘How serious is he about this? What if he got bored of it and then closed the farm shop? It might be too late for my business by then.’ One villager who has spoken to Clarkson about his plans for the shop, suggested Mrs Weaver’s fears about a short-lived enterprise were not entirely unfounded. ‘As I understand it, the farm shop will be used as one of the filming locations for his new show,’ the villager said. In a newspaper interview in May, the presenter said his I Bought a Farm programme would document ‘actual farming: life, death and form-filling’ on his mainly arable land, adding: ‘We’re not making Countryfile. We’ll be showing it warts and all.’
West Oxfordshire District Council is yet to make a decision on the application. Chadlington Parish Council has raised no objections ‘as long as filming is for farming activities only and local produce only is sold.’
A representative for Clarkson said ‘Jeremy is hard at work creating a viable, working farm across 1,000 acres in the Cotswolds.
‘No more information is available at this time’.
Clarkson, who once claimed Norfolk people were so inbred they could not tell a Ferguson tractor from a Ford Capri, bought his property for £4.25million in 2012.