Cotswold Villagers Count the Cost of Year-Round Tourism

Tourism in the Cotswolds has become a question that touches residents’ daily lives directly: how many visitors can a village absorb before the people who live there start paying the price? With autumn in full swing, the West of England remains a popular region for cosy getaways, and the chocolate box villages of the Cotswolds are proving particularly popular. But in some places, the post-pandemic rise in visitors has strained the balance between welcoming tourists and protecting the wellbeing of local communities.

Nowhere is that tension more visible than in Bibury, a village home to about 600 people that can see up to 20,000 visitors a day. Fences have had to be installed to stop tourists paddling in the river. Victoria Summerley, who has lived in the village for 14 years, told the BBC last week that the behaviour of some tourists had become worse since Covid, with “unbelievable” amounts of litter ending up in the stream.

The picture is not the same everywhere. Twenty-four miles away in Painswick, Carol Maxwell said that while there are an “awful lot” of tourists in the village, there is a balance, with most “really nice and appreciative”. She said visitors were “not exactly loud and they don’t create a bad atmosphere”, and that she did not think anyone felt tourists were a “nuisance or an imposition or anything like that”. They spend money in the village having cups of tea, she added: “They’re not causing problems at all.”

For local businesses, the visitor economy has been a lifeline, though not without friction. Cotswolds Lavender near Snowshill sees thousands of visitors every summer. Farm director Hannah Webb said tourists and influencers coming, taking and sharing photographs have driven business, but it can cause problems. “We’re very lucky to have something people want to see and want to tell people that they’ve been to us,” she said. The field has paths mown between rows of lavender and wildflowers to create the illusion of visitors standing in the flower beds in photographs, but some people have been sitting and laying down to get the perfect picture, which has led to a lot of “squashed plants”. A few years ago the farm put up signs asking people to be more careful, which Webb said “completely changed” behaviour, and visitors are now “so much more respectful”. A similar approach to people disobeying the dogs on lead policy, in place to protect insects and mammals that nest among the flowers, has also led to “more positive results”.

In Wiltshire, meanwhile, Castle Combe, among the most popular Cotswolds locations and the backdrop to films such as Stardust and War Horse, faces a different pressure. A bridge over the River Bybrook is often packed with people taking photos, and the village can struggle to cope with the volume of vehicles and people during busy spells. Local councillor Jon Atkey said most visitors “enjoy the village respectfully”, but warned that “Castle Combe’s roads and infrastructure were never designed to accommodate the levels of traffic we now see”. During busy periods, traffic can become heavily congested, with cars circulating in search of parking spaces and queuing through the village for long periods. “Residents are understandably concerned about the impact this has on both safety and air quality,” he said, adding that the vast majority of visitors should continue to be welcomed. “The challenge for all of us is finding a better balance that enables people to visit while ensuring Castle Combe remains a thriving community and a good place for residents to live.”

Experts frame the issue as one of planning and public policy. Dr Amir Gohar of the University of West England, who has worked on tourism policies in environmentally sensitive areas with rapid tourism development, said “overtourism” occurs when tourists get the attention of government and cities and villages are transformed to serve visitors more than the local community. In popular areas of the South West, including the Cotswolds, Somerset and Wiltshire, that can mean pressure on infrastructure such as parking, water, sewage and waste collection, because high tourist numbers are “not accounted for when planning the town or village”. He also pointed to housing affordability, as businesses and development companies cater for tourists with short stays or Airbnbs, meaning “prices get high and the local residents pay that price”. Finding a balance between visitor experience and residents’ wellbeing, he said, is a challenge that “needs to be regulated”.