Clarkson told by council to shut down farm café and restaurant

Jeremy Clarkson, as well as 2,000 farmers, had recently demanded a slash in rural regulation (Photo: Amazon Prime)
Jeremy Clarkson, as well as 2,000 farmers, had recently demanded a slash in rural regulation (Photo: Amazon Prime)

Jeremy Clarkson has been told by the council to shut down his farm café and restaurant following a long-running planning dispute.

West Oxfordshire District Council served an enforcement notice for the presenter's 1000-acre Diddly Squat Farm, which he has appealed against.

According to the council, his café and restaurant, the latter opening in July - six months after the application was rejected - have breached planning laws.

The farm is featured on the popular TV series Clarkson's Farm, which first aired in 2021 on Amazon Prime. A second series is in the pipeline.

Council officials said the café and restaurant “by reason of its nature, scale and siting is unsustainable and incompatible with its open countryside location”.

A statement said: "Council officers have worked with the owner and planning agents of the business, over many months, to investigate breaches in planning control, advising on how the business can be operated in a lawful way and trying to reach a solution.

"The business continues to operate outside the planning permissions granted and advice has been ignored. The activity has also had a significant impact on the local community."

Agents for Clarkson responded by saying the authority's decision is "excessive" and that the farm's developments are not in breach of planning laws.

It comes after Clarkson spearheaded calls for the government to halve the volume of regulation affecting rural businesses before the next general election.

In a letter to the prime minister, Clarkson, along with other celebrities, said rural businesses were being hit with a 'bureaucratic bulldozer'.

The letter - which accused the government of seeking to 'micromanage every acre' - was also been signed by nearly 5,000 other people living in the countryside, including 2,000 farmers.