Jeremy Clarkson’s Oxfordshire pub has been granted permission for a new extension.
The 64-year-old presenter, who opened his country pub in Burford, Oxfordshire in August, has faced several challenges including complaints about queue times and food quality. However, the former Top Gear host has now received some good news despite his previous run-ins with West Oxfordshire District Council planners.
The authority has approved a planning application for a single-storey extension at the establishment. The planning officers’ report stated: “The proposal is considered to be compliant with the policies identified above in terms of principle, design and in officers’ view conserves the special characteristics of the Cotswolds National Landscape (CNL).
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“Accordingly the application is recommended for conditional approval.” The covering letter of the application read: “This application seeks to provide a modest extension to the south of the building, the new internal floor area is less than 25 square metres.
“It allows internal reconfiguration to improve toilet facilities for all and more efficient cellar facilities. The extension ensures suitable rear access to the kitchens is retained and an external store is also shown to replace existing temporary facilities.
The Farmer’s Dog has proven popular but its opening has not been without setbacks
(Image: PA)
“It is to be constructed with a horizontal external timber cladding and provides a new pitched roof in reconstituted Cotswold slates to replace the existing bitumen flat roof.” Since The Farmer’s Pub opened, several planning applications have been submitted, but no objections were raised against these plans.
Jeremy recently revealed the challenges he faced at The Farmer’s Dog in the lead up to Christmas, confessing: “Behind the scenes, then, everything is a total disaster.”
The Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? host detailed the issues he faced in his column for The Times, admitting that he had been “naive” when he bought the pub. Jeremy recounted an incident involving the “horror” scenes in the pub toilets, after one of his staff members called him and “made retching noises down the phone” for several minutes.
He stated: “No amount of festival visits would prepare you for the horror of what had been produced at the Farmer’s Dog. It was everywhere and in such vast quantities that no ordinary plumbing or cleaning equipment would even scratch the surface.
“So a whole team of chemically trained hazmat engineers had to be employed. That’s a cost I’d never factored into any of my business plans.”