Clarkson’s Farm has been renewed for a second season by Amazon Prime Video.
Greenfingered gearhead Jeremy Clarkson has lashed out at his local council for refusing planning permission on Diddly Squat Farm.
The former Top Gear host bought 1,000 acres of farmland in 2008, and is now the subject of the hugely successful Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime Video.
A second season has been given a green light, and is in the midst of filming, but Clarkson has said it won’t be out for a while due to the length of recordings and the editing process.
Clarkson took to Talk TV to talk about being refused planning permission three times to build on Diddly Squat Farm.
“I have no idea, I must have offended the planners in some way,” Clarkson said.
“Maybe I should buy an apron and join the Masons, I don’t know what you have to do, but I simply can’t get planning permission for anything.
“It’s infuriating, but it’s not just me, as it turns out, I thought it was, but farmers up and down the country are saying the same thing.
“The basic farm payment scheme is being reduced dramatically.
“Mine has gone down from £80,000 to £60,000, goes down to £40,000 next year and will eventually go down to nothing at all.
“The Government has told farmers to diversify, to think of other ways of making money and not just rely on taxpayer assistance.
“So I thought fine, I’ll open a shop, I’ll open a restaurant and sell my produce there.
“The local Government just says no, you can’t do that.
“So we’re being told to diversify on one hand and then told we can’t diversify by local planners.”
Clarkson said that while he was angry, the whole saga was making “tremendous television”.
“Without knowing it, West Oxfordshire District Council are writing a fantastic script, and every farmer in the country will go ‘that’s exactly what’s happening’.
“These – how can I put it – not terribly bright people in planning departments just don’t understand what they’re messing around with.”
Clarkson listed off a series of issues that he and other local farmers faced with Government, but said that he would do “what he learned at school”, and get around the rules.
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