Clarkson’s Farm

[48k]

extraT said:

Can’t we just agree that:

1) He’s doing a good job of showing all the hoops farmers have to go through, making their lives difficult?

2) The farm and farm shop directly support local businesses.

3) Yes, he is ducking about and has a multibillion dollar company and independent wealth behind him, but he is trying to do things properly.

4) The council are making his life difficult for no other reason then he is a famous person. They absolutely could let the restaurant, car park and pathways open, bringing locals and tourists, directly adding to the local economy. If it poses an issue for local folk, it could be managed via restricted opening times and supplemented with a shop outside of the village.

A lot of local folk and businesses rely on Clarkson’s farm. The council and even government are doing themselves no favours in being hostile. Restrictions are always possible but outright bans (on a path way?!?!) is stupid. They are being difficult just because it’s J.C

No, we can't all just agree that.

If he were trying to do things properly, there would still be sheep in the lambing barn and he would still be dicking about mending fences where sheep escape from, as he started out as a sheep farmer in season 1. But three seasons of lambing and preventing sheep escapes gets a bit samey and the viewers will have tailed off. So he switched to cows for the next season, and had appropriate cow mullarky. Now for season 3 he's sold his cows for no discernible reason and switched to pigs. It's a very haphazard approach to farming and not one I think any farmer would follow but it is entertaining TV.

Regarding the council, as discussed many times in this thread and indeed on this page, Clarkson has done certain things which have antagonised the Council. The Council have done certain things which have antagonised Clarkson. Clarkson can then paint the Council as the pantomime villain. It makes good telly and he knows it.

[Leon R]

FourWheelDrift said:

My local shop has started selling Clarkston's Hawkstone Lager and Cider, it's their best selling product.

It's actually a pretty good Lager, particularly the session one.

[FiF]

Can someone answer me why the grown or made within 20 mile limit has been imposed. Is it something to do with AONB rules?

CPRE (Council for Protection Rural England) definition is 30 miles and not exclusively so.

In a very short time the Worcestershire farm shop will be selling Cornish new potatoes, 20 miles, 30 miles, LoL

Strikes me JC's council isn't lily white on this.

[CLK-GTR]

48k said:

No, we can't all just agree that.

If he were trying to do things properly, there would still be sheep in the lambing barn and he would still be dicking about mending fences where sheep escape from, as he started out as a sheep farmer in season 1. But three seasons of lambing and preventing sheep escapes gets a bit samey and the viewers will have tailed off. So he switched to cows for the next season, and had appropriate cow mullarky. Now for season 3 he's sold his cows for no discernible reason and switched to pigs. It's a very haphazard approach to farming and not one I think any farmer would follow but it is entertaining TV.

Regarding the council, as discussed many times in this thread and indeed on this page, Clarkson has done certain things which have antagonised the Council. The Council have done certain things which have antagonised Clarkson. Clarkson can then paint the Council as the pantomime villain. It makes good telly and he knows it.

A council should not be engaging in such games. Their job is to apply the rules in black and white and theyre not doing that here, they're hunting for ways to get one over on him.

You could argue Clarkson shouldn't be at it either but he's not there to represent the public.

[Downward]

BikeBikeBIke said:

FiF said:

It seems to me that there are planning conditions applied to Clarkson that aren't applied to, for example, our farm shop.

It's not your local farmshop. It's a merch outlet for a global TV series watched by millions.

Although they go through where the produce is from and a lot is from local folk producing it.
So yeah they close and it’s others that are in trouble. Clarkson will have his wealth and money from Amazon so can pretty much do what he wants for the entertainment. Now he has involved others though their livelihood is at risk.

[Downward]

RizzoTheRat said:

Abbott said:

Without the comedy I would say more farming is closer to the agony and hardworking of this programme than the other usual "Ive made my millions in the city and have now bought a farm and everything is Alpaccas and prancing lambs"

Agreed, it's not an accurate depiction of every day life for farmers, but it's a pretty accurate depiction of the challenges they face and the type of work they do. Clearly some bits are pre-planned to be silly for TV, and hope the daft bits (like the blackberry machine and the wall) don't end up taking over the show too much.

I initially didn't bother watching it as I'd got bored of Clarksons parody of himself before they left the BBC Top Gear. However my mother (farmers wife) and sister (agronomist, basically what Charlie does) both recommended it, and I think it's a great series.

The cost of hiring that machine and the cost of repairing the wall to be added to the chart !

[BikeBikeBIke]

romft123 said:

I meant Clarksons not Countryfile. I dont know anyone that watches CF. People watch Clarksons for the comedy.

It's not really aimed at a soley grownup market.


If the family was out I'd watch Harry's Farm instead:

https://youtu.be/xJCrfujVZIk?si=xziW9GlwpI7DqGVA

(Which included the snippet that Clarksons stony soil isn't considered good for potatoes. So complaining that your spuds failed when no other farmer would have even planted them is good TV, but not based on reality.)

[48k]

CLK-GTR said:

48k said:

No, we can't all just agree that.

If he were trying to do things properly, there would still be sheep in the lambing barn and he would still be dicking about mending fences where sheep escape from, as he started out as a sheep farmer in season 1. But three seasons of lambing and preventing sheep escapes gets a bit samey and the viewers will have tailed off. So he switched to cows for the next season, and had appropriate cow mullarky. Now for season 3 he's sold his cows for no discernible reason and switched to pigs. It's a very haphazard approach to farming and not one I think any farmer would follow but it is entertaining TV.

Regarding the council, as discussed many times in this thread and indeed on this page, Clarkson has done certain things which have antagonised the Council. The Council have done certain things which have antagonised Clarkson. Clarkson can then paint the Council as the pantomime villain. It makes good telly and he knows it.

A council should not be engaging in such games. Their job is to apply the rules in black and white and theyre not doing that here, they're hunting for ways to get one over on him.

You could argue Clarkson shouldn't be at it either but he's not there to represent the public.

The council are applying the rules in black and white. The problem is that some of the rules can contradict each other (eg. Permitted Development rules vs AONB rules). That's one reason the planning inspector had to decide which rule wins.

Clarkson is not there to represent the public he's there to make entertaining telly. He put in planning permission to build a farm shop which included specification of the colour and material for the roof. Then he built something different. So the Council say "hey you've done something we've not agreed to" and it makes a bit of telly. He put in planning permission for a lambing barn, suspiciously (a cynic may say) directly attached to the shop rather than where the livestock was. He did sheep for a year then gave up on that idea and oh look - I could now put a cafe in to this barn that is conveniently attached to my shop. Thousands of people start descending on the place and the council say "hang on a second, this in planning terms is change of use which you haven't applied for". Cue some more great telly.

He's not stupid.

[Evanivitch]

extraT said:

Can’t we just agree that:
3) Yes, he is ducking about and has a multibillion dollar company and independent wealth behind him, but he is trying to do things properly.

No, he's not doing things properly. That's the while premise.of the show. You don't have sheep one year, cows the next, pigs the following year. You don't make the "mistakes" that inflict harm and stress on the animals if you're doing it properly.

extraT said:

4) The council are making his life difficult for no other reason then he is a famous person. They absolutely could let the restaurant, car park and pathways open, bringing locals and tourists, directly adding to the local economy. If it poses an issue for local folk, it could be managed via restricted opening times and supplemented with a shop outside of the village.

It wasn't the council that ultimately said the restaurant was non compliant.

extraT said:

A lot of local folk and businesses rely on Clarkson’s farm.

Who? I'm not aware of him creating much new business aside from a burger van?

[BikeBikeBIke]

48k said:

Yes fair point watching it back they have not called out specifically that the PP&E purchases would be shown on the balance sheet as assets and what depreciation model they would be following. That is a little bit smoke and mirrors, on reflection.

Good spot, I missed that.

[48k]

FiF said:

Can someone answer me why the grown or made within 20 mile limit has been imposed. Is it something to do with AONB rules?

CPRE (Council for Protection Rural England) definition is 30 miles and not exclusively so.

In a very short time the Worcestershire farm shop will be selling Cornish new potatoes, 20 miles, 30 miles, LoL

Strikes me JC's council isn't lily white on this.

His restriction is a 30 mile radius.

The original planning permission was a 16 mile radius, he applied to have it extended to 30 miles which was approved.

[Downward]

FourWheelDrift said:

My local shop has started selling Clarkston's Hawkstone Lager and Cider, it's their best selling product.

Co Op sell it now too

[FiF]

48k said:

FiF said:

Can someone answer me why the grown or made within 20 mile limit has been imposed. Is it something to do with AONB rules?

CPRE (Council for Protection Rural England) definition is 30 miles and not exclusively so.

In a very short time the Worcestershire farm shop will be selling Cornish new potatoes, 20 miles, 30 miles, LoL

Strikes me JC's council isn't lily white on this.

His restriction is a 30 mile radius.

The original planning permission was a 16 mile radius, he applied to have it extended to 30 miles which was approved.

Thank you, didn't know it had been extended.

[Aprisa]

CLK-GTR said:

You'll never meet a poor farmer. I think what they're doing well is highlighting how the government have things upside down with the help in the wrong places. Cash flow and productivity is tough but there are tax breaks and other assistance in areas its not so needed.

Be careful with that, there are literally thousands of Poor Tennant farmers and Scores of Farming Suicides from financial pressure every year.

It's not really a normal business scenario when you literally have no control over your input costs and in Dairy, little or no control over the sale price of your product. And when a tennant no assett that is increasing in value to borrow against.

[CLK-GTR]

Aprisa said:

Be careful with that, there are literally thousands of Poor Tennant farmers and Scores of Farming Suicides from financial pressure every year.

It's not really a normal business scenario when you literally have no control over your input costs and in Dairy, little or no control over the sale price of your product. And when a tennant no assett that is increasing in value to borrow against.

Which is part of the other problem I mentioned, government policy has made it so conglomerate farms and wealthy city dwellers are squeezing independent farms all over the place.

[WrekinCrew]

Aprisa said:

Be careful with that, there are literally thousands of Poor Tennant farmers and Scores of Farming Suicides from financial pressure every year.....

Last week's Private Eye says the latest Environmental Land Management Scheme is resulting in many tenant farmers being evicted.
Land owners make more from subsidised "rewilding" and "landscape recovery" (ie doing nothing) than actually growing food.

[DeejRC]

BikeBikeBIke said:

Yeah, I love it. There's so much detail about how farming works and how tight things are.

I never spotted that the extreme weather we've had the last few years is likely to reduce income down to zero, whilst the expenditure is unchanged. ....and that's on a very well drained farm.

Try being on clay. That was £20-30k in drainage costs we sank in the first few yrs.
Weather sucks wrt having a farm

[biggbn]

WrekinCrew said:

Aprisa said:

Be careful with that, there are literally thousands of Poor Tennant farmers and Scores of Farming Suicides from financial pressure every year.....

Last week's Private Eye says the latest Environmental Land Management Scheme is resulting in many tenant farmers being evicted.
Land owners make more from subsidised "rewilding" and "landscape recovery" (ie doing nothing) than actually growing food.

Isn't rewilding and landscape recovery essentially investing in the future generations crops?

[WrekinCrew]

biggbn said:

WrekinCrew said:

Aprisa said:

Be careful with that, there are literally thousands of Poor Tennant farmers and Scores of Farming Suicides from financial pressure every year.....

Last week's Private Eye says the latest Environmental Land Management Scheme is resulting in many tenant farmers being evicted.
Land owners make more from subsidised "rewilding" and "landscape recovery" (ie doing nothing) than actually growing food.

Isn't rewilding and landscape recovery essentially investing in the future generations crops?

Not if there's no-one to farm it.
It's not the same as leaving a field fallow for a year.

[Evanivitch]

WrekinCrew said:

Not if there's no-one to farm it.
It's not the same as leaving a field fallow for a year.

F'me, someone thinks fields are fallow in 2024.