Jeremy Clarkson has finally accepted council's decision to close his restaurant
Fans of Clarkson's Farm will be absolutely gutted to know that the Diddly Squat restaurant has been forced to close following a length fight with the council.
Ex-Top Gear star Jeremy Clarkson had originally planned to contest the ruling which the council gave to his business venture but has since decided that it's time to accept the restaurant's fate. He has no plans to try and re-open the business.
In the second installation of Clarkson's Farm, which dropped on Amazon Prime earlier this month, we saw that Jezza, right-hand man Kaleb Cooper and their crew of fellow farmhands were on a mission to build a restaurant that would sell only locally sourced ingredients as a way of helping out local farmers.
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However, as shown in the show, Clarkson had been in a bit of a back-and-forth crusade with the council ever since he first spoke of the concept in July 2022.
Despite having the planning application rejected by the local Chipping Norton Town Council, Jeremy decided to plough on and ignore the rejection, saying that he and his crew had found a 'delightful little loophole' which involved changing the location of the restaurant into an already-existing barn within the farm grounds.
At the time of the revelation, Clarkson told The Sun: "It’s so satisfying to be thwarted at every turn by the council and then find a loophole."
The restaurant itself was open plan and mainly outdoors - a design that aimed to open throughout the summer as a sort of pop-up.
Diners were told before booking that the farm restaurant was 'small, outdoors and very rustic'. The restaurant didn't have a menu either, but attendees were promised a delicious array of snacks as well as 'a roast and pudding'.
During the show, it seemed touch and go whether the restaurant would open in time, with a less-than-impressed Clarkson having to take five to calm down as the team ran around trying to set up.
However, despite all odds, the opening night of the restaurant made for a fabulous evening and the 40-cover venue received incredibly positive feedback about the concept and the food provided by top chef Pip Lacey and her crew.
At the time of opening, the Diddly Squat restaurant received a list of orders from The West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) which needed to be completed within six weeks of the notice being served.
Unfortunately, this deadline passed and the council deemed that the measures taken were not sufficient.
The notice served had required the Clarkson's Farm team to remove all mobile toilets, tables for dining and 'landscaping materials', as well as stating that the farm shop could only sell products grown on the farm itself or within a 16-mile radius.
Due to this, Clarkson's own book wasn't allowed to be sold at the venue, to which he told the Daily Mail: "They claim they weren't made locally but I wrote them at my kitchen table, and you literally can't get more local than that."
Dean Temple, a member of the West Oxfordshire planning committee, said Clarkson 'may have a valid point' about the origins of the book, but countered with: "[Clarkson] wanted to open a farm shop to sell milk and honey and we said go ahead.
"If you are going to open a farm shop that is for farm produce and a book isn't farm produce, wherever it's written. If he'd phoned up and said 'I want to sell my book alongside produce' we could have discussed that but he didn't."
However, agents who work on behalf of Diddly Squat deemed the requirements to be 'excessive' and added that the map provided by the council in their notice was inaccurate, causing the entire notice to be invalid.
They also believed that six weeks wasn't a gracious enough timeframe and that six months would have been 'more reasonable'.
As of present, Clarkson seems to have given in to the council's high demands and has no plans to re-open the restaurant.
Topics: Amazon, Jeremy Clarkson, TV and Film, Clarkson's Farm
Harley Young