07 January 2023 , 20:08
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Jeremy Clarkson has closed a controversial restaurant on his Diddly Squat farm, to the delight of his neighbours.
The former Top Gear host opened it in a barn in a field last July despite protests from locals.
It was then closed after an enforcement order from Cotswolds council officials. But Clarkson, who already has a shop on the site, boasted he’d found a “delightful little loophole” to keep it on his 1,000-acre holding despite a breach of planning laws.
Now the 62-year-old broadcaster has admitted defeat in a letter to West Oxfordshire District Council who had ruled it was not in keeping with the rural area.
Clarkson – who recently came under fire for awful comments about Meghan Markle in his newspaper column – wrote: “I no longer wish to open a restaurant,” adding he’d been “thwarted by the enforcement notice”.
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Jeremy Clarkson is pictured outside his Diddly Squat farm shop (Tom Wren / SWNS)Locals in neighbouring Chipping Norton were yesterday celebrating a victory over the TV star whose life on the farm was turned into a documentary on Amazon Prime Video. Clarkson fans also flock to his farm shop.
Michael Benson, of Chadlington, said: “It is a win for the community. I would like the whole thing shut down. We are just a small village and Diddly Squat Farm is in the wrong place.
“We don’t need a theme park in an area of natural beauty. The new year was ridiculous. You’d spend about 20 minutes trying to get into town.”
The broadcaster has closed an eatery on his farm in Oxfordshire (PA)Neighbour Lucy Walker added: “We have been plagued with traffic since he arrived. He caused massive upset with these restaurant plans. It’s just the arrogance of what he thinks he can get away with.”
In his letter, Clarkson also said he has sold most of the cows he planned to sell as meat in the restaurant. He added he uses chemical fertilisers.
Diddly Squat has been featured in a documentary on Amazon Prime (Adam Hughes / SWNS)Parish councillor Ann Gate backs Clarkson. She wrote to the district council on behalf of “quietly supportive local residents” to say he has “used his celebrity status to highlight the difficulties of the farming community”.
Clarkson has owned the farm since 2008. Amazon Prime will air a second Clarkson’s Farm series in February.