Diddly Squat vs Planning Authorities

The above picture popped up on my social media feed, Facebook, earlier this week. Unfortunately, I did not have any Gaviscon in the house at the time I saw it to ameliorate the visceral reaction to the man let alone the reason why someone should start a petition on his behalf.

Jeremy Clarkson (JC), who owns Diddly Squat Farm, applied for planning permission two years ago to convert an existing farm building into a fifty seat restaurant, build an access track and create a car park. He and the local authority were in discussions to try and sort something out. Compromise was unattainable so, ultimately and very recently they refused permission for any of these changes.

"Quelle surprise" number one as the farm is located in the Cotswolds in what is designated as an “area of outstanding natural beauty”. Consequently, any planning applications are subject to more scrutiny to comply with the surroundings.

Diddly Squat Farm is the setting for a streaming series on Amazon and has grown a huge fan base with its regular airings highlighting what farming life is like and the problems British farmers face. I am not sure a farm owned and funded by a celebrity is a fair representation of farming life, but it does get attention.

And that seems to be what JC gets his serotonin, dopamine and endorphin hits from; "attention" which is one of the bastard children of controversy. And controversy over what he writes and says follows him like faeces stuck to Velcro.

Remember his article in The Sun earlier this year about a member of the Royal Family now living in California? Within a week of it being published the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) received over twenty thousand complaints. JC eventually apologised and in his apology said that in hindsight he shouldn't have said the things he did. If the timing of this realisation was as he says it is then why didn't he ask his editor to withdraw the article?

No, in my humble opinion his words after the event were profoundly shallow. Too late anyway, they were out there and no matter how quickly the article was taken off the paper's website they have been spoken, they have been broadcast and they can still be found on the internet.

Here we are now where one of his friends, supporters or fans of the Diddly Squat show has set up a petition to get the local authority to reverse its decision. The person sponsoring the petition as they, in their own words, think the local authority "...are not supporting Diddly Squat Farm becoming a successful business by making planning decision based on bias towards Jeremy Clarkson."

On the petition website and in the comments I have skimmed through posters are taking this refusal as an affront to the whole of the rural economy. What they conveniently forgot to mention was that the farm with its established farm shop has already been operating outside of existing planning permissions regarding car parking. No surprise there on both counts. The council had no alternative but to take action against those breaches as it felt its ratepayers and wider population would have wanted it to. In my opinion to have ignored those ongoing breaches would have shown a clear bias towards JC to the detriment of the local people.

Isn’t that democracy at a local level in action?

The farm shop reopened after its winter break last weekend. “Quelle surprise” number two as it was the same weekend the new series of the farm program started to be streamed on Amazon Prime. This reopening caused huge parking problems causing damage to nearby verges as people either queued to get into the shop or just parked their cars anywhere and walked.

Fair enough, as we live in a democracy, voice your opinions and try to get something you disagree with changed. So, fair play to the individual who started this one. However, I would like to put a few questions out there to them and their support.

By asking for this decision to be reversed have they considered the impact these changes would have on the environs surrounding the farm? That would be in terms of increased traffic volumes and traffic pollution.

Have they also considered the impact on the local people? Yes, the new facilities may create extra jobs and an outlet for local produce but at what qualitative price to the local community?

And my final question is – if the sponsor of the petition or any of its supporters live in or spend a lot of their recreational time in an area of outstanding natural beauty would they agree to a local farming business being allowed to diversify in a way that would result it increased traffic, increased pollution and increased disturbance to their own rural idyll?

No, I shall not be signing the petition. Out of interest the last time I looked at how it was going there were less than 20,000 signatures on it after a week compared to over 20,000 complaints to IPSO within 24 hours of JC’s article that he apologised for and weas subsequently taken down for the Sun’s website.

Bombastic rhetoric and behaviour often creates a crisis to solve a crisis but in this case I suspect it will not work.