Jeremy Clarkson clashes with council again over trees on Chipping Norton farm

The TV presenter, 63, said he had recently been sent another letter by West Oxfordshire District Council concerning his plans for the site in Chipping Norton.

The Clarkson’s Farm host used a column to criticise Environment Secretary Steve Barclay’s plans to encourage the use of timber in the building of new homes.

The government announced its idea and a roadmap to see more new homes built from wood in its bid to curb climate change ahead of the COP28 summit.

But Mr Clarkson ridiculed the idea in his latest Sunday Times column before revealing the latest row with his local authority.

He said: “The upshot is that if we can find people to plant trees, and we can’t, and the trees survive, which they won’t, then what?

“We start building little wooden houses, like beach shacks, for families to live in. I find that incredibly defeatist but tragically, indicative of the times... “

He then added: “I recently received a missive from West Oxfordshire district council telling me that my plans to plant some trees must be scaled back. I’m not making that up, by the way.”

The letter in question referred to Mr Clarkson’s planning application in March to build a new car park a short walk from the hugely popular farm shop with trees and bushes screening visitors’ parked vehicles.

A landscape and forestry officer told Mr Clarkson that a three-metre-high hedgerow and “a few crab apple and field maple” saplings should be sufficient.

He said: “There does not appear to be a need for so many potentially very large trees along the boundary hedging around the carpark.”

Chadlington councillor Dean Temple said: “Essentially the landscape and forestry office didn’t feel he needed to go that far.”

He added: “I don’t begrudge Mr Clarkson spinning it into a humorous article. I’ve long been a fan of his written work and found his prose a delight.

“I appreciate the irony he says but I also can see where the council officer is coming on this.”

Mr Clarkson has been in planning disputes with the council several times since he took over the farm in 2019 as documented throughout his hit Amazon show Clarkson’s Farm.

Season 2 focused on Mr Clarkson’s plans to build a restaurant after the council refused his plans to convert his lambing barn.

When he decided to convert a different barn on the farm the council refused him permission to build a farm track to it.

But in July he won a planning appeal to create the 70-space car park which soon became jam-packed with two hour waits on the day it opened in August.

However, he lost his appeal to build a restaurant as it was deemed too “harmful” to the area.

Mr Clarkson previously told Talk TV: “I don’t know what you have to do, but I simply can’t get planning permission for anything, which is infuriating.”

The third season of Clarkson's Farm arrives next year and Prime Video recently greenlit a fourth season of the hit show.