West Oxfordshire District Council has released a statement to the Oxford Mail saying the new season of Clarkson’s Farm is not representative of what happened in the planning meetings.

The statement comes following scenes in season two of the Amazon programme that show clashes between Jeremy Clarkson and the council.

The council rejected applications for a restaurant and new farm track at Diddly Squat Farm.

A council spokesperson said: “The planning meeting shown in Clarkson’s Farm ran for well over an hour but was covered in a matter of minutes in the show.

“This meant that a lot of discussion from the meeting was missed, including a lot of very relevant legal planning advice and discussion that informed the decision taken by councillors.

“The ‘dark skies’ argument that featured in the programme was a very small part of the overall discussion and was not the reason for refusal of planning permission.

“Officers and councillors have to make some difficult decisions based on national planning related laws and guidance alongside local policies.

“Most applications have their pros and cons - as was obvious with the decisions for Diddly Squat Farm in Clarkson’s Farm.

“Indeed, the Council recognised the benefits in the proposal to local farmers and the economy, but the proposals did not meet other planning requirements and ultimately, having heard the whole case as opposed to edited highlights, the councillors voted to refuse planning permission.

 “Usually for applications like this, a business would speak to us so we can support it ensuring an application is compliant with planning policy.

READ MORE: Clarkson's Farm new season is 'misleading' says council

“We would have been happy to do that in this case, however, Diddly Squat Farm did not engage with us nor follow advice from our planners when pulling together the application.

 “Throughout series two of Clarkson’s Farm a lot of information was not included, or appears to have been misleading for viewers, leading to the narrative promoted by the series that the council has a vendetta against Mr Clarkson.

"A good example of this was the ‘refusal’ of the farm track where the show omitted the fact that Diddly Squat Farm had applied retrospectively for work that can only be applied for in advance meaning the council had no choice under law but to refuse it.

“Also, it was suggested that West Oxfordshire District Council had put cones along the road outside the farm which was not the case.

“We would like to be clear we treat each application fairly and objectively regardless of the individuals involved with the submission.

“This is also the case with the Diddly Squat Farm.

“Over recent years, Diddly Squat Farm has had many planning applications approved where they were in line with national and local planning policy and behind the scenes we have worked with the owners and planning agents of Diddly Squat Farm to try and reach a positive outcome where the business can operate within the planning laws and policies and help to support other local farmers.

“However, we cannot force a business to work with us, and when that is the case we can only judge planning applications on what a business submits.

“The council operates in a transparent way, so we were happy for the production team to attend the meeting in a way that didn’t obstruct the meeting taking place.”

In response to these claims, a spokesperson for Clarkson's farm said: "Naturally not every element of filming makes the final edit of the programmes, however, the episode covered both sides of the debate and the outcome of the meeting."

They also added that no specific council was referenced as being responsible for the traffic cones.