{"id":321072,"date":"2025-11-29T20:14:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T20:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/321072\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T20:14:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T20:14:24","slug":"bourton-residents-fear-overtourism-has-hit-breaking-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/321072\/","title":{"rendered":"Bourton residents fear overtourism has hit &#8216;breaking point&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Carmelo GarciaLocal Democracy Reporting Service<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764206060_712_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/e22a1500-cd28-11f0-8283-5d59e9f176b9.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Carmelo Garcia A small Cotswolds-stone bridge with a cyclist wearing Lycra stopped in the middle. The bridge goes over a picturesque river with crowds of people on either side sitting on the grass.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Carmelo Garcia<\/p>\n<p>Residents of Bourton-on-the-Water say tourists are finding the village to be too busy<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Overtourism in a town known as the Venice of the Cotswolds may have &#8220;reached breaking point&#8221; as residents say visitors are now &#8220;fed up&#8221; with the crammed experience. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">About 100 locals aired their concerns about tourism in Bourton-on-the-Water at a meeting on Thursday with leaders from Gloucester County Council and Cotswold District Council.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Bourton Residents&#8217; Voice, a local group that organised the meeting, said it was not against tourism but wanted to achieve a level that was sustainable for the village.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">One resident told the meeting at Bourton Baptist Church that visitors seem &#8220;fed up&#8221; and &#8220;massively disillusioned&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;They are not happy with the experience,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;It&#8217;s starting to turn. Perhaps we&#8217;ve reached the breaking point this summer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">One woman, who has lived in Bourton-on-the-Water all her life, said the number of visitors had never been so high, according to the <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/lnp\/ldrs\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Local Democracy Reporting Service<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;You can&#8217;t move in the village, you can&#8217;t go into the village,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The woman said the best time for the village was during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">She added: &#8220;I don&#8217;t walk in the village between March and October.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764206060_712_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/f3d20a60-cd28-11f0-8283-5d59e9f176b9.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Carmelo Garcia Several dozen residents sit in church pews at a meeting sharing their concerns with councillors. One man is stood at the front, talking to them. He is standing near a set of organ pipes.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Carmelo Garcia<\/p>\n<p>One resident at the meeting in Bourton Baptist Church said visitors seem &#8220;massively disillusioned&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">One man told the meeting he had lived in the village for 30 years. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He echoed the concerns and blamed coaches for dropping people off &#8220;all over the place&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;They cause problems, they block roads, they turn around in the wrong places,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They are a real menace.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Council leaders at the meeting said they would use the feedback to help them find solutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carmelo GarciaLocal Democracy Reporting Service Carmelo Garcia Residents of Bourton-on-the-Water say tourists are finding the village to be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-321072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}