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Tourists have been caught climbing over walls and scrambling over garden fences to take pictures and admire a picturesque village in the Cotswolds.
The small village of Bibury in the Cotswolds is famous for its row of residential 17th-century weavers’ cottages on Arlington Row and its charming water meadow.
Once described by William Morris as “the most beautiful village in England”, the village often welcomes visitors looking to snap pictures of the attractive surroundings, making it one of the major destinations for tourists wanting to visit traditional rural villages.
However, tourism in Bibury has caused contention over the past few years, with its fewer than 1,000 residents reporting they have struggled with a huge increase in tourism in the post-Covid era.
Photos taken as recently as Friday (4 October) have emerged showing tourists appearing to try and leap over fences of the private homes and clambering over the stone garden walls, reports MailOnline.
Other pictures have captured tourists leaning right up against the hundreds-of-years-old stone cottages to get pictures and selfies in the serene countryside setting.
Tourists were also pictured leaping over a small, narrow stream running alongside the quaint cottages, while other shots show just how busy the small village can get on a Friday, with visitors lining the streets grabbing shots of their surroundings.
Bibury can see up to 20,000 visitors in a weekend, with up to 50 coaches coming into the village daily, yet a minority of tourists have caused issues for the locals who live in the area.
Long-term residents of Bibury have voiced their concerns for years of the overcrowding in the village and the impact that tourism can have on such a small part of the countryside.
Parking, or lack thereof, has become an issue as large coaches and swarms of cars have frustrated several drivers and residents, even resulting in some clashes over parking becoming violent.
Mark Honeyball, Chair of the Bibury Parking Working Group, said last month that he was kicked in the stomach and punched in the face during one incident over the issue, BBC News reported.
Gloucestershire Police says they are investigating the incident.
In the spring and summer months this year, residents in Bibury also called for new tourist rules to be implemented after a “weekend of chaos” at the end of May when its small streets became gridlocked.
Some villagers also said increased litter and aggressive behaviour by tourists is causing some to consider moving away from the picturesque village.
The Cotswolds region, known for its remarkable natural beauty within the English countryside, has had to tackle the issue of overtourism as a whole throughout the years,
Over in another well-photographed village, Castle Combe, residents have also stated that their privacy has been “invaded” by tourists’ drones and their community ruined by short-term holiday rentals.
The popular tourist village, used as the setting in many films and television shows such as Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, has seen tourists ‘pitching up’ a spot for the day as if they were by the seaside rather than in a residential community, locals have said.
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