“Our nurses have 10 patients to visit a day, but because of the traffic, they’re only doing four.” Jenny Coaker, an NHS worker, lives in what tourism operators call a “picture-perfect” village. But she tells The i Paper that thanks to coach-loads of visitors heading down the narrow high street, tinted-glass minivans of well-heeled visitors and other day-trippers taking the local parking spots, the staff she manages are stuck.
As for the patients, “the carers can’t get to them to dress their wounds or change their pads. People who need insulin could go into a coma, people who are incontinent are sitting in that, and people on end-of-life care are in agony waiting for painkillers”.
Soon enough, Jenny’s off, shaking her fist at the driver of a double-parked minibus. Welcome to Bourton-on-the-Water, where, on the banks of the clear and shallow River Windrush, children splash about, families sit in circles on the green, and ice cream sellers outnumber the local Budgens by about 15 to one.
It’s a quiet Thursday, locals say. But still, by 1pm, the village green is a teeming Where’s Wally scene.“The problems that we’re having are the families that are coming at 8 o’clock in the morning, bringing deck chairs, picnic tables, their own food and drink, and staying for the whole day,” says Charlotte Joynes, head of Bourton Residents Voice, which was formed to address the issue of overtourism. She adds: “Apart from maybe an ice cream, they’re not here to buy.”
