Popular UK village asks tourists to arrive in “smaller vehicles”

The United Kingdom village of Bibury, once upon a time called the most beautiful in England by poet William Morris, has managed to put itself in the headlines once again with a call for tourists to arrive in “smaller vehicles.”

Already reported by Travel Tomorrow, the Gloucestershire village, situated in the “National Landscape” area of the Cotswolds, can attract up to 20,000 visitors per day in the high season. The sheer volume of arrivals can overwhelm its narrow roads and around 600 inhabitants with “pressures” that the former chair of the local council, Craig Chapman, has called “intolerable and unacceptable.”

Previously installed coach parking bays were deemed “disruptive and unsafe” and, while Chapman has insisted Bibury is not “anti-tourist,” for him it is nonetheless, “not a suitable destination for larger coaches.”

@how_i_moved_to_uk Rate the parking in your country from 1 to 10👇 #cotswolds #travel #england #car #rooadtrip #UK ♬ Beautiful Things – Benson Boone

A new traffic management system began a trial in May, introducing parking restrictions and a designated drop-off area for coaches, whose numbers have been known to reach up to 50 a day, as well as penalties for non-compliance.

Those measures are set to continue for another month, but have recently been assessed as “working moderately well.” However, likely future tweaks will include a better unloading bay for visitors to England’s oldest working trout farm, plus improved accessibility features such as an increase in disabled parking spaces and additional bus stop signage. In addition, it is speculated that an upcoming meeting with the Highways management team might result in an outright ban on large coaches.

Lisa Spivey, county council leader, has noted the intensive staffing needed for the scheme to work, saying it has so far “been supported by a significant increase in parking enforcement.” She has encouraged would-be tourists to the village to consider the “many fantastic places to visit” in “The Cotswolds, and Gloucestershire as a whole.” If visitors cannot resist Bibury, she asked them “to visit in a smaller vehicle more suited to the historic narrow streets.”

The Cotswolds, crossing six counties and over 2,038 km2 of south-west countryside, is England’s third-largest protected landscape, characterised by rolling hills and chocolate box villages filled with golden-stone, thatched-roof cottages. Other villages there, too, have complained of the effects of overtourism, such as Castle Combe in Wiltshire, where visitors’ antisocial use of drones has led to clashes with residents.

US Vice President J.D. Vance will not have helped reduce the region’s notoriety, thanks to his reported vacation in the region during the summer of 2025.