This is the error I get in my log:

Permission denied: /home/ross/.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable

My VirtualHost is pretty simple:

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1>
 ServerName jotter.localhost
 DocumentRoot /home/ross/www/jotter/public
 DirectoryIndex index.php index.html

 <Directory /home/ross/www/jotter/public>
  AllowOverride all
  Order allow,deny
  allow from all
 </Directory>

 CustomLog /home/ross/www/jotter/logs/access.log combined
 ErrorLog /home/ross/www/jotter/logs/error.log
 LogLevel warn
</VirtualHost>

Any ideas why this is happening? I can't see why Apache is looking for a .htaccess there and don't know why this should stop the request. Thanks.