Jeremy Clarkson admits planning permission row was ‘clever storyline’ for Clarkson’s Farm episode
During season two of the Amazon Prime series, viewers watched as Jeremy Clarkson was at loggerheads with the council authorities a number of times – however it seems one issue was a well thought out plan all along.
Clarkson decided that he wanted to convert a pre-existing barn on his farm into an eatery but his plans were left downtrodden when the council put a stop to it.The Grand Tour presenter has since admitted that the planning permission request was all part of a storyline which he and a farmer friend had conjured up.
In his latest column for The Sun, Clarkson explained his friend said: “If you want a storyline for the next series, try getting planning permission for something.
“I was a bit puzzled and asked what he meant by ‘something’,” before he was told: “Anything. It doesn’t matter. Because I guarantee you’ll be turned down.”
He added that despite farmers being told to diversify by the Government due to being about to lose EU grants and subsidies, their attempts are often met with little support: “If a farmer tried to do that, his local council will say no.”Clarkson attempted to get the planning permission to turn an existing building on his property into a restaurant – which would have served “beef, lamb, beer and potatoes that we grow on the farm.”
The former Top Gear presenter described their response as if he had asked permission to “build Studio 54”.
He explained: “As my farming friend had predicted, the council went berserk and did everything in it’s power to stop me. And it wasn’t just the restaurant either.
“They even turned their guns on my little farm shop, firing so many heavy salvoes that, even today, I’m not allowed to sell my own farming books in there.”
This isn’t the first time that Clarkson has gone head to head with the council after they sent him a missive to scale back his plans to plant trees.
He wrote in his Sunday Times column: “I recently received a missive from West Oxfordshire district council telling me that my plans to plant some trees must be scaled back.
“I’m not making that up by the way. The upshot is that if we can find people to plant trees, and we can’t, and the trees survive, which they won’t, then what?
“We start building little wooden houses, like beach shacks, for families to live in. I find that incredibly defeatist but tragically, indicative of the times…”I have a better idea. Let’s not. Let’s use stone instead because there’s a limitless supply. You’re literally standing on it every time you go outside.
“And it can’t be eaten by deer or squirrels or worms, and contrary to what Steve Barclay might think, it’s an environmental irrelevance because it’s inert.”
