Councillor who battled against Jeremy Clarkson speaks out over outrage from Clarkson's Farm viewers

A former councillor who was elected to the ward where Jeremy Clarkson's Diddly Squat Farm is just a month before Clarkson's Farm was released has spoken out.

Since the beginning of the show, the local council has become something of a villain for Clarkson and the Diddly Squat team.

Clarkson has ended up battling West Oxfordshire District Council over attempts to get a car park and restaurant built on his farm, while there have also been disputes over the farm shop.

Some eagle-eyed Clarkson's Farm viewers have noticed that Jeremy is now drinking his tea out of a mug which says 'This mug was also not approved by the West Oxfordshire District Council'.

However, the man who became councillor for Chadlington and Churchill about a month before Clarkson's Farm arrived on Prime Video told the Daily Telegraph his perspective on events.

From 2021 to 2024, Dean Temple was councillor for Chadlington and Churchill, where Diddly Squat Farm is located. (Witney Town Council)

Dean Temple was voted into the council position in May 2021, and a month later, when Clarkson's Farm premiered he was enjoying it until he saw how the council was being portrayed.

He said: "I was sitting there watching it as a fan, laughing away, thinking, ‘This is brilliant, this is fantastic, this is... Ahhhhh sugar'.

"All of a sudden I was getting calls, death threats from all over the world because, apparently, I’m a nasty individual."

Temple said that after four days, he had to close his Facebook Messenger and eventually stopped trying to explain things in his responses to some of the messages he received.

"You realise you’re dealing with people who have got their own opinions, they’ve watched the show and therefore they’re an expert on what happened and I’m an idiot and I don’t know what I’m talking about," he told the Telegraph.

Some parts of Diddly Squat Farm sit in an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB), which means there are some heavy restrictions on what can be done with the land.

Some viewers have noticed that Clarkson's mug is poking fun at the council. (Prime Video)

Temple maintains that Clarkson could build much of what he wanted on Diddly Squat Farm if he constructed it elsewhere, saying that with his 'cynical head on' he wonders whether some of the decisions made for the development of the farm are more about producing 'good telly'.

The former councillor said that if Clarkson wanted his restaurant he could have 'put that building on the other side of the road', which lies outside the AONB where the rules are different.

"The TV show is entertainment and people don’t understand that it’s not a documentary," he said.

"It [only] has to have the ring of truth. What do they call Made in Chelsea? Scripted reality.

"It pushes a certain narrative and idea, and it’s framed and edited in a certain way."

Temple argued that thousands of visitors to the farm shop clog up the nearby road with their cars and means that emergency service vehicles, such as ambulances and fire engines, wouldn't be able to get through.

He described Clarkson's plans to sort this out by building a car park as 'putting 14 acres of tarmac across the Cotswolds'.

Clarkson's Farm is back for season three, and the council are once again being called out. (Prime Video)

The former councillor said that he used to 'chat a lot about F1' with Clarkson but doesn't recall speaking to him in the past year, though he did tell the Telegraph that he approves of Clarkson more than some other celebrity residents as he 'will actually engage with the community'.

Clarkson came in for some praise for his willingness 'to help out folks and be supportive of the local community'.

Having won the 2021 election in Chadlington and Churchill, Temple instead decided to leave the ward and be the Conservative candidate for Witney North.

He said that Clarkson's Farm was '100 percent' the reason why he moved.

However, at the recent local elections in England held on 2 May, the vote went the way of the Green Party, while in Chadlington and Churchill, the Liberal Democrats overtook the Tories.

West Oxfordshire District Council recently published a new statement saying they 'apply the same laws and rules to Diddly Squat Farm in the same way as any other business'.

The council also said they didn't want the farm shop to close, insisted they were treating Diddly Squat Farm fairly and announced they'd be happy to work with the farm on any future plans.

LADbible have contacted Prime Video for comment.