Soho Farmhouse hopes to build an overflow car park to to accommodate the public as well as members at events that are open to the local community.

The exclusive country club at Great Tew, Chipping Norton, has applied to West Oxfordshire District Council to build an overflow car park with new connections to the existing car park and to move and rebuild an embankment.

Planning documents said overflow car parking had been required for special events such as Bonfire Night and Christmas carols when the hotel is open to the local community plus busy Bank Holiday weekends when larger parties are being held.

The club within the Great Tew Estate comprises numerous buildings, cabins, farm buildings, gymnasium, restaurants and walled garden cottages.

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It has become the place for stars to organise their parties, Meghan Markle is said to have had her bridal shower there and David and Victoria Beckham - who live two hundred yards away are regulars.

It was granted permission for an overflow car park in 2019 but due to lockdown closures and social distancing "trading conditions meant that there was no commercial justification to make any further investment in the site" at that time.

The application is for exactly the same development as was given permission, which lapses in August 2022, but it also includes the drainage and lighting details.

A planning, design and access statement said: "Currently, when these special events are held, Soho Farmhouse makes arrangements with Great Tew Estate to rent land at the junction of Tracey Lane and Ledwell Lane to provide overflow parking.

"Members of Soho Farmhouse and the general public either walk down Tracey Lane to the Gatehouse or are ferried by staff in minibuses to and from the event."

But it said, this land was a mile away, and they could not guarantee its long-term future availability.

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The existing visitor car park holds approximately 345 cars, with 30 parking bays at the Check-In House and 19 at the Check-Out House.

The proposed overflow car park is within the existing site and the relocated earth bund, which would be planted with new native-species woodland, would be in an area which is currently arable farmland.

No mature trees or hedgerows would be removed and additional woodland planting is also proposed on one side of the exit road.

An ecology assessment said the application site has very little ecological value having been used as arable land and has currently the remains of a wheat crop.

No evidence of use by mammals or birds was noted during the survey.