Picture-postcard tourist traps are buckling after too many visitors
People living in the UK’s most popular picture-postcard hotspots say their towns and villages are buckling from too many visitors.
Many say they particularly dread bank holiday weekends, but claim the problem is often now year-round.
Complaints include overcrowding, parking disputes, out-of-order toilets, inflated rent and house prices, roads being blocked by selfie takers and even bad language.
Entire coach-loads of visitors will arrive in small, quaint villages, not designed to withstand such high numbers of people, they say.
The MailOnline spoke to several residents who voiced their dismay.
Parish and district councillor Jon Wareing said pretty Bourton-On-The-Water in the Cotswolds is struggling under the weight of day-trippers.
He explained how a visitor recently threatened one of his neighbours after being asked not to park on his drive.
‘People can spend an hour in their car, driving around. Some of the ”difficult” behaviour that follows is because they get frustrated,’ he added.
‘One of my neighbours asked this person not to park on his property and got threatened with violence. He said he knew where they lived if they did anything to his car and threatened to throw a brick through their window.’
Coaches could previously park on a designated piece of private land, but this has now been withdrawn, leading to congestion issues.
As a result the parish council is now considering banning coaches from central parts of the village.
Resident Bernie Roberts lives yards from the High Street, but he and other villagers rarely go there on busy days.
He said increasing tourist numbers had ruined the area, with people breaking the 20mph speed limit, ‘proper shops’ closing, and young people being forced to leave the area because homes are bought by outsiders wanting to rent them out, pushing up prices.
Not everyone in the village agrees, however. Local business owner Sarita Tapper, who runs Chestnuts Fashion Fix shop said banning coaches from the centre could force businesses to close.
She also said that although there were busy days, the village could also be very quiet, especially during winter.
In Whitby North Yorkshire, meanwhile, a town made famous by classic novel, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, resident Danny Wilson plans to move because of the high tourist numbers.
The 55-year-old, who owns a Goth-themed fashion shop, said he lives in a rented flat and all the other flats in his building are now holiday lets.
‘They make a lot of noise. I cannot leave my bike outside my door. The fire alarm is going off all the time,’ Danny said.
He added that the town used to be quiet during the winter but said it’s now busy all year round.
‘Locals are sick of having nowhere to park and not having any local pubs. They feel pushed out, like in any tourism destination.’
Barry Snedden, 67, has been running pleasure boat trips around Whitby Harbour for 42 years, so relies on tourism, but said it now comes with too many issues.
He explained that on busy days people are forced to walk in the road and no one cares about parking rules.
Mr Snedden said tourists also don’t check the tides and get cut off, while families often leave their kids’ buckets and plastic fishing nets next to bins, which then blow into the harbour.
The nets, he said, can get tangled into boat propellers causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.
He also complained of bad language from tourists when they’ve ‘had a few beers’.
Residents in Salcombe Devon have also had enough. Parking in the pretty seaside down has become a nightmare, they say.
Sally Hannaford, 54, who manages The Pasty Shack on the waterfront explained tourists will drive around looking for somewhere to park and eventually pull up anywhere and take the risk of a ticket.
She said she sees lots of tickets on car windscreens in high season.
The mother-of-two said high property prices in the area has made it difficult to find staff as ordinary workers can’t afford to live there.
Towns and villages overrun with tourists is of course not just a UK issue, and a number of places abroad have taken drastic measures to tackle the issue.
One village in Menorca is even considering banning visitors all together.
Binibeca Vell has had a big boom in interest recently, after becoming a hit on social media.
The picturesque Spanish settlement currently has 800,000 visitors annually, mostly between the warmer months between May and October, but this year that figure is set to rise to 1 million.
As a result of the sudden influx, local officials are now planning to put an end to tourism there.
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