Visitors to Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat farm chew up the grassy edges with their 4×4 cars

Visitors to Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat farm chewed up grassy edges with their 4x4s today as the queue over a new car park intensifies among locals.

Dozens of vehicles descended on the popular Oxfordshire site again this morning, with long queues forming outside the Amazon presenter’s farm shop.

But as its popularity continues to rise, the farm’s lack of adequate facilities to cater to such an influx of customers has once again been exposed.

Several cars were left in boggy mounds at the side of a road outside Diddly Squat which have fallen into disrepair in recent days as more and more people flock to visit.

Clarkson remains locked in a planning appeal battle with West Oxfordshire District Council, which refused to grant him permission to extend the store’s car park in May last year.

A two-day planning inspection meeting was held this week to consider the 62-year-old former Top Gear presenter’s proposals to accommodate 70 more vehicles.

WODC opposes the plans on the grounds that it would encourage more visitors to Diddly Squat farm, which lies between Chadlington and Chipping Norton, increasing traffic problems.

The council has also said allowing more vehicles would further disturb the tranquility of the Cotswolds Area of ​​Outstanding Natural Beauty.

On Twitter, Clarkson said the recent furore “makes it look like a civil war is brewing” but insisted “a compromise will be reached.”

It comes after it was revealed that teenage workers at Diddly Squat have to wear body cameras to record abuse directed at them by locals angry at the influx of visitors.

Annabel Gray, 32, who works in a catering trailer at the Clarkson farm, said this week that workers as young as 16 at the farm have had to install cameras on their uniforms.

It also responded to a complaint made at a meeting by Chadlington resident Hilary Moore, who described tourists drawn to the farm as ‘motorheads’ who drive slowly on the surrounding roads to ‘show off their cars’.

But Ms Gray said this description was “unfair” and that she “had witnessed local people” adding to traffic problems by driving slowly too.

Ms Gray, who is also a farmer’s daughter, said Clarkson’s shop provides an “important” education for visitors, some of whom don’t realize that “the beef patties come from a cow”.

Other villagers who support Diddly Squat Farm have described it as the ‘crown jewel’ of sustainable living as they pleaded with their local council to allow the expansion plans.

It comes as camera crews were seen in Chipping Norton yesterday to resume filming on their hit series, Clarkson’s Farm.

It also broke yesterday that the chain has invested in a new beer trailer to serve its flagship Hawkstone beer.

Farmhand Kaleb Cooper shared a photo of the new ‘mobile bar’ on Instagram, with one photo showing a gray trailer with pink paint on the roof.

While it’s unclear what permits Clarkson will need to install the bar on its land, planning permission is generally not required for temporary structures that are used less than 28 days per year.

You already sell alcohol at your store, so you may not need an additional alcohol license.

Clarkson’s struggles have led some local councilors to ask officials to go easy on the star, with Liam Walker, a Conservative Oxfordshire county council member, suggesting he was being treated differently from other developers.

“Jeremy is Marmite and he knows it,” he told MailOnline.

“Of course, the council will say that all planning requests are taken at face value, but I wonder if some of my colleagues on the council came up with a predetermined opinion.”

Clarkson is also challenging his decision to close his restaurant on the same lot because he allegedly opened it without planning permission in July of last year.

It comes as a court heard how Clarkson’s partner Mr Cooper was the first to respond after a ‘selfish and careless driver out of hell’ crashed into a Ford Ka outside the TV star’s farm .

Cooper was on hand to block the road to traffic after 25-year-old Lewis Smith ignored give way signs at a junction on the A361 near Chadlington and collided with an oncoming vehicle in his Ford Fiesta in September 2021.

The driver of the KA, a woman in her fifties, along with Smith’s passenger, a man in his early twenties, sustained serious injuries.

Smith, who, along with his passenger, was not wearing a seatbelt, was jailed for two years yesterday after pleading guilty to two counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.