Clarkson's Farm

I think that's only because he was looking at getting the big guns in. As was said with the road he was building, any other farmer has never had planning permission denied for this sort of thing, but obviously this council has an axe to grind with Clarkson and every request is met with an automatic denial.

So in most cases farmers wouldn't have to consider a lot of these legal costs for planning permission requests.

IMHO if he overturned the councils decision, they should be liable for his legal costs. It's hardly fair when some old man loser can pay a barrister a few hundred quid to write a poorly spelt defensive statement, and to counter that realistically he'd have to spend half a million.

It wasn't quite that simple was it? He wants to bring in a lot of traffic on small roads and he wanted to build a decent sized car park for the restaurant. I don't think there is usually an objection to putting in new road if its for a farm to use for farming but he is wanting to build a restaurant. I don't agree with them but its not "just a road".

As to making them foot the bill if their decision is overturned, that would be madness and you would never get any refusals or you wouldn't have anyone serving on these panels.

I don't think the crappy barristers letter or testimony was vital, I think they simply don't want things to change and they don't like Clarkson.
 
He's not helped himself though in all honesty, when you go and look at some of the objections raised and previous applications - he's asked for an inch and taken a mile on several previous occasions by the sound of it, so trust in his later applications is always going to be diminished.

He asks for a 50 cover restaurant/cafe, with a 70 space car park but also applies for an alcohol licence for 150 people and has an 'overflow carpark access' noted on his plans. Would you trust there isn't a longer term plan to significantly expand the 50 cover proposal?

He has a 'lambing shed' that's been used for lambing once, that's ultra conveniently located immediately adjacent to his shop - it doesn't require much imagination here to think it was probably part of the plan all along. A planning committee not taking kindly to incremental development and change of use when they suspect it's all being done deliberately to skirt round planning rules and local plans, isn't something that's particularly exclusive to Clarkson. Build yourself a big shed in the garden and then try to turn it into a small house a year later and you'll probably get a similar rejection.
 
It wasn't quite that simple was it? He wants to bring in a lot of traffic on small roads and he wanted to build a decent sized car park for the restaurant. I don't think there is usually an objection to putting in new road if its for a farm to use for farming but he is wanting to build a restaurant. I don't agree with them but its not "just a road".

As to making them foot the bill if their decision is overturned, that would be madness and you would never get any refusals or you wouldn't have anyone serving on these panels.

I don't think the crappy barristers letter or testimony was vital, I think they simply don't want things to change and they don't like Clarkson.

It wasn't a proper road it was a farm track from a to b.

The refusal for a carpark and then continue to complain about people parking in grass verges is a little insane
 
Also take into account that in the first series he was doing 'dubious' stuff and every Councilor would have watched that first series so knew when he applied for things he probably wasn't being honest.
Let's face it, he has now shown them he has built his own farm track behind their backs so what chance has he got applying for anything?
And also remember it's a TV programme.
 
The car park application being refused is again unsurprising, when the plans submitted are pretty much just the restaurant plans again but with the words 'Lambing Shed' instead of 'Restaurant'. A lambing shed that's full of picnic tables (and I think a bar now) in reality. It will have almost certainly been seen as a dishonest attempt at incremental development.
 
It wasn't quite that simple was it? He wants to bring in a lot of traffic on small roads and he wanted to build a decent sized car park for the restaurant. I don't think there is usually an objection to putting in new road if its for a farm to use for farming but he is wanting to build a restaurant. I don't agree with them but its not "just a road".

As to making them foot the bill if their decision is overturned, that would be madness and you would never get any refusals or you wouldn't have anyone serving on these panels.

I don't think the crappy barristers letter or testimony was vital, I think they simply don't want things to change and they don't like Clarkson.

Actually the bit I was referring to exactly was an internal road, wasn't even paved/tarmacd either


He's not helped himself though in all honesty, when you go and look at some of the objections raised and previous applications - he's asked for an inch and taken a mile on several previous occasions by the sound of it, so trust in his later applications is always going to be diminished.

He asks for a 50 cover restaurant/cafe, with a 70 space car park but also applies for an alcohol licence for 150 people and has an 'overflow carpark access' noted on his plans. Would you trust there isn't a longer term plan to significantly expand the 50 cover proposal?

He has a 'lambing shed' that's been used for lambing once, that's ultra conveniently located immediately adjacent to his shop - it doesn't require much imagination here to think it was probably part of the plan all along. A planning committee not taking kindly to incremental development and change of use when they suspect it's all being done deliberately to skirt round planning rules and local plans, isn't something that's particularly exclusive to Clarkson. Build yourself a big shed in the garden and then try to turn it into a small house a year later and you'll probably get a similar rejection.

I can't actually find an accurate definition for what a "cover" refers to, but I'd have thought a cover would seat 4 people. So a 50 cover restaurant is good for 200 people. So a 70 car carpark might not even be sufficient, similar with a 150 person alcohol license, assuming every seat is filled by an adult who drinks alcohol.
 
I can't actually find an accurate definition for what a "cover" refers to, but I'd have thought a cover would seat 4 people. So a 50 cover restaurant is good for 200 people. So a 70 car carpark might not even be sufficient, similar with a 150 person alcohol license, assuming every seat is filled by an adult who drinks alcohol.

I've always understood a cover to mean one person.
 
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I get the view that Clarkson has been hard done by here. However, there is always a but and It's been mentioned a few times. It's worth re-iterating that Clarkson isn't an entirely innocent party here. The farm shop wasn't built to the agreed spec and then it was full of merchandise that breached their existing planning permission so he has already had plenty of attention from the council. Not only that it failed its food hygiene inspection and frankly, if my local kebab shop can get 5 stars (which is an utter dive), there really is no excuses for that.
 
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He has a 'lambing shed' that's been used for lambing once, that's ultra conveniently located immediately adjacent to his shop - it doesn't require much imagination here to think it was probably part of the plan all along. A planning committee not taking kindly to incremental development and change of use when they suspect it's all being done deliberately to skirt round planning rules and local plans, isn't something that's particularly exclusive to Clarkson. Build yourself a big shed in the garden and then try to turn it into a small house a year later and you'll probably get a similar rejection.

Yeah happens a lot, tends to not go down well.

We've got a development near us where they had permission for a "small" outbuilding - current construction is approx 25m long, by 16m wide, 3 stories high and proper I beam construction, etc. - the nearest neighbours are furious and looks like they are going to have trouble with planning.
 
I've always understood a cover to mean one person.

Learned something new, seems it has some historical French roots.

 
just finished s2 and have mixed thoughts about it. Series 1 clearly showed the hardships that farmers now face and was really eye opening. S2 just seemed to be about a millionaire TV presenter solving problems by throwing his millions at it, not really giving voice to farmers in general. What happened to his collective, for instance? getting local farmers to provide produce. That didn't happen even when he did open a restaurant. And hiring a full gourmet kitchen staff for a building that could barely fit them in!

While the councillors clearly had an axe to grind, that axe was sharpened from S1 when they no doubt saw all the dodgy stuff he was doing, the lambing shed was never going to be a long term lambing shed :) So I don't think he has too much complaints about that.

Anyway S2 just felt different, drifting off into the sort of scripted Top Gear antics that that show ended up as. be interesting to see what S3 consists of.
 
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