Jeremy Clarkson wins battle with council over permission to extend Diddly Squat farm shop car park

Jeremy Clarkson has won his battle with West Oxfordshire District council as permission to provide more parking at his Diddly Squat farm has been granted. The Grand Tour presenter had been locked in legal proceedings with the council since last year.

The site is the subject of the presenter’s popular Amazon series entitled Clarkson’s Farm, and has since become a major attraction with hundreds of visitors travelling to it. The site was unable to offer appropriate parking which resulted in cars being left on the side of the road and damaging the land. This triggered outrage from locals in the surrounding village of Chadlington.

While this latest decision from a planning inspector is a victory for Clarkson and the business, plans for a restaurant on an area of the site known as Lowland Barn were refused at appeal. Inspector RJ Perrins said in a report that planning permission has been granted for “an extension to existing parking area to formalise temporary parking and provision of new access arrangements”. The report addressed the farm’s influx in interest as a “victim of its own success”.

In his report, the inspector addressed locals’ concerns and said the inspector noted: “I am in no doubt that this has caused a huge inconvenience for those who live nearby. It was clear to me that many people visiting on the day of my final site visit had no regard to the proper use of the highway, with verges being further churned up and traffic having to stop, as visitors walked the middle of the road or cars manoeuvred into tight spaces.

“From that snapshot in time I am not surprised, as heard in evidence, that tensions have run high between some of those living locally and some visitors to the farm shop.”