Jeremy Clarkson plans to build a 50-seat café/restaurant and 70-space car park at Diddly Squat Farm.
In the planning application to West Oxfordshire District Council his team say Diddly Squat is ‘facing an acute reduction in the Basic Payment Scheme’, a government subsidy, which is currently being phased out.
It says the payments will reduce from £83,298 to £0 over the period 2020 to 2028.
“It is reasonable for a farm business to investigate ways to replace this income with on farm diversification to create new income streams or expand existing enterprises,” it says.
They state that the Government subsidy received by Diddly Squat Farm “accounted for over 85 per cent of the business’s profit” this year.
Mr Clarkson, 61, who is reported to be worth £50million and has hit shows Clarkson’s Farm and The Grand Tour, met Chadlington villagers at a public meeting to answer concerns about his plans to develop the site.
He admitted that his plans to open a restaurant in his former lambing shed “have gone down like a shower of sick with a few red-trouser people in my local village”.
He wrote: “It was a (mostly) polite battle between the red-tractor movement and the red trousers and I think I did quite well.”
Referencing diplomat and former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali he added: “Certainly they didn’t make a wicker man of me afterwards. Maybe that’s why some people call me Boutros Boutros-Clarkson.”
However, he admitted that his “next battle is with the planners” in his Sunday Times column.
Locals have already criticised the plans on the WODC planning portal.
Ms Maggie Jackman wrote: “The proposed cafe/bar is in the Cotswolds AONB and has completely ruined the tranquility of this site. The proposed development with more parking and more reasons to visit will make the situation worse. I would like to know if WODC has consulted with Cotswolds AONB Planning Officer?”
She added that “the local community is not respected”.
“Crowds decended on the Chadlington village pub when a member of Clarkson’s team was recently there, the traffic blocked the lane and the Police had to be called. Highways seem to think the problem has gone away because the temporary car park at Diddly Squat Farm Shop has been created but this is not true.”
She added: “The ‘lambing shed/barn’ has not been used for Agricultural purposes, the year it was built had sheep in it for a very short time only, and this proposal contravenes change of use for an agricultural building as set out in government guidelines that states the length of time they have been used as such.”
