A popular pick-your-own fruit and vegetable business could close because it has not been given planning permission for a new farm shop.

Richard Stanley, of Rectory Farm, Stanton St John, has been waiting 14 months for a decision after the old shop was destroyed in an arson attack.

South Oxfordshire District Council said the applicant had not answered all their questions, but Mr Stanley says he has had no explanation for the delay since he first applied in March 2005.

After waiting the first three months, Mr Stanley said he had to build the shop because the farm was about to be inundated with customers during the summer peak period.

Today, Mr Stanley has still had no answer and faces the prospect of having to pull down the shop if planning permission is refused.

He said: "We will have to close down. We can't really operate without a shop.

"It would be nice to get an answer we aren't building a nuclear power station here."

In the latest letter, the council has requested six more weeks.

Mr Stanley, who has been running the farm for 25 years, said: "They haven't said why there's a delay, they just want more time to consider every time, and they don't really even answer our letters."

He added that the new shop building was different from the old one, but said: "You wouldn't put up the same thing 20 years later. It's not built of wood because we decided that a building of wood means it gets burned down.

"The shop is not the first, we've lost two in the asparagus field. We'd be asking for trouble. The new one is steel."

Adrian Duffield, South Oxfordshire's head of planning and building control, said the application would have been heard by councillors last month but wasn't, because Mr Stanley had not given answers to a number of questions.

Those included how the building would be used, such as having a coffee shop, and queries about planning permission problems with separate buildings on the farm.

Mr Duffield admitted that the 14-month wait for a decision had been caused by delays on the council's side too. He said: "We are very supportive of the farm shop there, but there are a number of other issues, like enforcement."

Mr Stanley, who could appeal because the council has passed the eight-week deadline, has asked all his customers to write to the council. He said: "We're not a lot further forward than we were in March 2005. We have had a bit more correspondence and have paid a lot of money in consultants' fees, so we are enlisting the support of customers.

"If we don't get it, then people can just trundle off to Tesco in the future."