Jeremy Clarkson fails to win approval for Cotswolds restaurant

Council rejects TV star's proposal for conversion of lambing shed, accused by barrister of being a Trojan horse'

In his old life, Jeremy Clarkson conceded he might have been prepared to pave over the British countryside - but the former petrolhead-in-chief has insisted he is a changed man.

As a farmer, he was trying to do his bit to save the countryside by turning his recently built lambing shed into a restaurant serving locally produced food at his Diddly Squat farm in the Cotswolds, he told planning subcommittee officials in the small Oxfordshire town of Witney.