TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson’s plans to open a farm shop in a West Oxfordshire village has caused concern among residents.
Mr Clarkson is planning to front a new TV show about farming at his country estate in Chadlington.
Some neighbours are objecting to plans and say the new shop at the estate nicknamed Diddly Squat Farm could have a detrimental effect on other businesses in the village.
Parish councillor Tony Allan said: “The potential impact on the village store and butchers is a concern.
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“People move to these kind of villages because they like them as they were.
“We have seen new money coming into the Cotswolds such as Soho Farmhouse and Daylesford organic farm shop and they risk changing the character of the communities.”
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Mr Clarkson, 59, also wants to construct a lambing shed at the farm and for the site to have car parking and ‘potential for occasional film-making’.
He said he was ‘not doing anything wrong or anything that would hurt the village but didn’t blame residents for their concerns, otherwise what is the point in planning permission’.
The new Amazon Prime production, which has a working title of I Bought The Farm, will chart the former Top Gear host’s efforts to transform a corner of the Cotswolds into a productive farm.
The Grand Tour presenter announced the surprising new project in a video post on Twitter.
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It shows the car enthusiast in a rain-soaked and misty field, as he says: “I’m going to be spending the next year in the rain making a show about farming for Amazon Prime. "This means that people all over the world will be able to watch me using a thousand acres of the Cotswolds to make thousands of tons of beer and bread and vegetable oil and lamb chops and jumpers.
“Of course to be a farmer you have to be an agronomist, a businessman, a politician, an accountant, a vet and a mechanic. And I’m none of those things. I don’t even know what agronomist means.”
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Georgia Brown, director of European Originals at Amazon Studios, said: “Jeremy is one of Britain’s finest exports and I think I speak for the entire nation when I say I can’t wait to see what will happen when he turns his usually petrol-covered hands to life on a working farm.
"We’re excited to bring this latest UK-produced Amazon Original series to Prime Video viewers around the world next year."
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