Day-trippers have been urged not to leave vehicles in fields in Norfolk after a farmer issued a “parking ticket” with a difference.
A row has erupted among the farming community after a farmer in Cornwall sprayed slurry over a Mercedes parked in his field. The act has sparked a nationwide debate over whether the farmer was in the right.
The video shows a farmer muck spreading down a field where a car is parked at the end. He says: “It’s been a busy day at the beach today, everybody social distancing, I suppose. That busy they decide to park in the field. You could see I was spreading slurry.”
The farmer then continues getting nearer to the car, with people visible standing close by at the end of the field.
He then says: “I am not stopping.”
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The camera pans to the slurry being sprayed across the field at the rear, until the farmer can be heard saying: “I hope you have as much fun washing your car as I have painting it for you.”
Parking on farmland goes against the spirit of the Countryside Code which urges drivers to “consider others when parking and avoid blocking entrances, gateways or other drivers’ visibility”.
A spokesman for the East region of the CLA, Country, Land and Business Association, said it highlighted the problem of parking which has been made worse because of coronavirus.
He said: “People are starting to come out of lockdown and with car parks closed, there’s nowhere to park. It is one of the areas that members realise is a challenge.”
The video has been viewed 655,000 times on Facebook alone. Tom Bradshaw, vice-president of the NFU (National Farmer’s Union) tweeted: “There is no way I could condone the behaviour (of the farmer.) Ultimately the driver of the car is a customer of UK farming and a conversation could well have paid dividends. I know some have become hugely frustrated with people not sticking to the Countryside Code and there is a knowledge gap.”
Many of the region’s farmers supported this view. One tweeted “It is a golden chance, albeit time-consuming when we are all up against it to educate and interact with the public.” And another: “Two wrongs don’t make a right, as much as frustrating as some members of the public get.”
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