You cannot have a conversation with anyone connected with town planning or architecture at the moment without the story of Jeremy Clarkson’s planning dispute with West Oxfordshire District Council making an appearance.
For those who have been under a rock, the latest season of the Amazon documentary, Clarkson’s Farm, shows Jeremy’s battles with the local planning authority over, among other things, the roof of the farm shop, the goods in the farm shop, the car park for the farm shop, the toilets, the lambing shed restaurant, a farm track and his eventual “victory” in the opening of a restaurant on his farm in Chadlington, Oxfordshire.
The success of the first series made Clarkson’s farm, Diddly Squat Farm, an overnight tourist attraction and surpassed all expectations. His small farm shop went from being a local resource to a national tourist attraction, and consequently, locals spent much of the next few months stuck behind the enormous traffic jams as thousands of Top Gear fans descended on the Cotswolds. This, understandably, upset local villagers, and drew the attention of the local council.
To be fair to Clarkson, he could not possibly have imagined that the farm shop would be quite so popular. The small car park he built was immediately overwhelmed, and a great swathe of barley had to be mown to provide additional overflow parking. Even this wasn’t enough, and of course the moment it rained, it turned to a muddy quagmire.
Keen to exploit the impact of season one on his business, having discovered just how unprofitable farming can be, Clarkson sought consent to open a restaurant on site – potentially attracting more tourists – and consequently began a battle with local planners and one local villager in particular.
The representation of planning committee in the show was, frankly, not atypical of many rural district councils. While planning considerations were discussed, the personal prejudices of councillors clearly impacted their decision making, and the weight they gave to particular elements of the officers recommendation for refusal. While the committee may have been derided by viewers, these sorts of meetings happen several times a week across the country, and they’re deciding where to put housing, businesses, hospitals, and a variety of other important such issues. Perhaps it is time people spent a little more time considering who their local councillors are!
But turning to the decision, clearly the story is told from the point of view of Clarkson; he is, after all, the protagonist, the star, and one of the executive producers, of his eponymous show. It does, very clearly, come across as though the Council “has it in for him” and is victimizing him because of his celebrity status.
How true is this though? After all, Diddly Squat Farm is located in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, one of the most highly regulated planning considerations for appearance and character. And Clarkson does give the impression that he doesn’t think rules should apply to him, and that it is better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. These are strikes against him in planning terms (the latest changes proposed by the Government will formally allow local authorities to discriminate against applicants who have a history of breaching planning rules).
Clarkson’s case is one entirely based on the economic benefits the restaurant and car parking can have. The restaurant is designed to be supplied by a co-operative of local farmers, with produce grown locally, meat grown and slaughtered locally, etc. However, as one objector notes, there is no reason such economic benefits could not be provided at a restaurant on one of the other farms in the co-operative, or at a restaurant in a more suitable location outside the AONB.
The proposals would secure 50 jobs, in an area that is short of employment locally (rural areas are less well served by employment, and consequently the pressures on non-sustainable travel to employment locations are higher). They would also secure the futures of the farms involved, we’re told, with one dairy farmer facing devastation due to a tuberculosis outbreak, and another unable to compete with Danish imported pig meat. The ills of the farming sector are very well explained in the show.
Against this, the planners had to balance the impact on the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. They were concerned that the glazing and lighting for the restaurant would unduly impact the AONB, especially with regard to the need for dark skies. While the existing building would be converted, the changes necessary to run an operation such as a restaurant are significant and the building would appear more out of character.
Having read the Committee report recommending refusal, and the appeal documents (and enforcement appeal documents) which are all available online on the West Oxfordshire council website, it is hard to disagree with the notion that neither side comes to this application with entirely clean hands. While Clarkson’s general attitude to development may be a crude caricature of many developers, it will not have endeared him to the planners, or the local stakeholders. And while there are reasons to refuse the application, the Council does appear to have placed insufficient weight on the economic benefits, or the broader Government planning policy encouraging rural agricultural diversification schemes.
Shockingly, Clarkson is then advised that to appeal the refusal of his restaurant would require a three week planning inquiry, with four or five professional witnesses, at least two sets of barristers (and probably a third set in the Rule 6 participant) and would cost him at least £300,000 in legal fees, rising to nearly a half a million pounds. All this for what is a relatively simple application where an Inspector would be asked to consider the planning balance and the weight to be given to the benefits and harms – I cannot see why any of the witnesses would need to give evidence under oath.
Unsurprisingly, rather than spend £500k on an appeal, he seeks a way around the Council’s decision, alighting on the Permitted Development Right Class R, which allows agricultural buildings of less than 150sqm to be converted to commercial use without an application for planning permission or Prior Approval. He has an old barn he converts in 48 hours, after his land agent informs the Council at 5.30pm the night before. The show shows this opening successfully, and it appears as though he has won his war of attrition. Not shown in the series is that this is merely a skirmish in his war with West Oxfordshire District Council, and that they have subsequently served him with an enforcement notice, alleging breaches of planning control in regards to the car parking, the farm shop, the installation of a farm track, and the opening of the restaurant. All of this is currently under appeal to the Secretary of State, with an informal hearing coming up shortly.
So is Clarkson right? Or has the Council been entirely reasonable? I guess each of us will have our own answers to that question. Purely on planning grounds, it is entirely possible (on the basis of the facts provided publicly) to make a valid argument that the Council have erred in the weight they have given beneficial and adverse impacts of granting planning consent. Particularly their decision to withhold consent for the car park and the farm track seem to be overly officious. Collectively, their decisions do seem to be an attempt to prevent a level of farm diversification that is far from unusual, and one cannot help but feel that a decision has been made within the hierarchy of the council that, due to the initial popularity of Diddly Squat farm, this is undesirable in Chadlington and should therefore be crushed. But equally, Jeremy Clarkson does himself no favours. His roughshod approach to life in general has come up against the immovable monolith of local planners, and some will feel some glee in telling him no.
The question all must ask themselves at all times is whether another applicant would face similar decisions. In this case, it is quite likely that the sheer level of traffic attraction for the site would mean yes, another applicant would face similar hurdles. Whether the Council would be quite so aggressive in refusing applications is, however, questionable. After all, Jimmy’s Farm, a local tourist attraction in the AONB here in Suffolk, has not had an application refused for 12 years, despite attracting huge volumes of traffic due to the popularity of Jimmy Doherty and his TV programmes. West Oxfordshire District Council are certainly not advertising themselves as a location that favours farm diversification. And by refusing to appear on camera, they’ve forfeited their ability to explain their decisions and open the minds of viewers to the planning process.
Here at Norton Taylor Nunn, we deal with planning applications and appeals, and enforcement appeals, and we do not charge anything like £500,000. If you want an informal chat, with no obligations, speak to our Planning Director Ben Norton. We won’t take cases if we don’t think we can add value to the process, and we’ll always be honest with you as to your chances of success.
