Farmer plans best little whorehouse in West

FARLEY BAMBER has come up with the perfect antidote to planners who have allowed a golf complex and a gypsy camp to blight his 15-acre (6 hectares) free-range chicken farm at Hewish, a village east of Weston-super-Mare, Avon.

He is lodging an application to build a pounds 200,000 brothel, complete with swimming pool and palm trees, on his land. Prospects for Britain's first rural bordello make Mr Bamber's mouth water. 'Clients from Weston-super-Mare will be top notch. Judges, MPs, we're talking absolutely top of the market here. We're also going to have male prostitutes. Potential earnings are pounds 5,000 a night.'

Mr Bamber, whose scheme is supported by his wife, Heather, is watching three years' work and a pounds 120,000 investment suffer after local planners allowed a Jersey- based magnate to build a 350-acre golf complex, with 200-bedroom hotel and 100 holiday homes, on his western boundary. A scrap merchant's 20-pitch gypsy camp near his farm shop was the last straw.

'The town hall told me four years ago they'd never ever allow buildings around here,' he said. 'That's what's really grating. Since the only urge stronger than fear is the sexual drive, the logical conclusion was to build the brothel. My application says it'll only be put in if the law here's changed to legalise brothels.'

Woodspring District Council tried to thwart his plan by raising the application fee from pounds 110 to pounds 1,500, but Mr Bamber will reapply at the town hall on Tuesday.