Jeremy Clarkson finally met face-to-face with Chadlington villagers in a tense meeting about the issues caused by his farm’s growing popularity.
The 61-year-old opened his Diddly Squat farm shop last year, and televised the process in his Amazon Prime show Clarkson’s Farm.
However, it soon drew anger from locals after fans from across the UK travelled for hours to attend the shop, causing huge queues of traffic and generating complaints from residents.
The presenter called a meeting on Thursday, September 9, to address the traffic issues and any “gossip” circulating about his future plans for the business.
(Image: PA)
Arriving at Chadlington Memorial Hall, Jeremy told reporters: “I’m just here to listen. Gossip spreads in villages and they don’t know what we’re doing so I thought, the best thing I can do is come down and say, ‘This is what we’re doing,’ and then it isn’t gossip any more.
“Someone gave me the finger on the way in,” he added.
(Image: PA)
When grilled about the traffic caused by tourists to his popular farm shop, he quipped: “Hey listen, the village has created a bit of a traffic jam tonight.”
Jonathan Moore, 53, a doctor who lives nearby, was inside the meeting and said Jeremy had promised to “control” the numbers of people visiting the site.
Speaking to the PA news agency, he said: “It’s all subject to planning, so he can’t promise anything yet, but he’s hoping to change the lambing shed into a restaurant.
(Image: PA)
“We thought it would be for 150 (people) but it’s actually 60 seats, and he’s trying to control the number of people coming to the farm shop in the future.
“It’s very expensive to sell his produce so he wants to try and sell as much through the farm shop and the restaurant as he can.
“As expected there were some people who had very strong views either way, the people who had negative views made them more strongly. He gave his views for the future and that’s all we can really hope for.”
Another resident added: “There were two or three local people who were very negative but I got the feeling that the majority was open to this project.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
