New plans to control bus and coach parking in one of the Cotswold's most popular tourist destinations could see people DIE, locals say.

Officials in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire want to tackle ongoing issues involving the huge number of vehicles bringing visitors in for the day.

Figures show in one year alone 238,000 people visited the 'Venice Of The Cotswold' by coach or large minibus.

Residents say they can't park as there are too many buses but businesses say a bus ban would hit trade and and turn the picture postcard village into a "ghost-town". "

A new temporary solution has been backed by officials but dubbed dangerous by one local care home manager - who says it will endanger lives.

The parish council voted to back a proposal designed to address the shortage of parking facilities following the closure of a privately-owned site in 2023.

Under the scheme coaches would pick up and drop off passengers in a designated on-street parking bay on Meadow Way.

Buses would then leave Meadow Way after ten minutes and head to an industrial estate where parking will be available.

But bosses at Jubilee Lodge care home on Meadow Way fear the extra high traffic there could block emergency vehicles - and lead to lives being risked.

The manager has written to the parish council raising concerns, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reports.

The manager wrote: ''My biggest concern is that due to a high volume of traffic and with such a narrow road to and from Jubilee lodge the emergency services will not be able to get through which could ultimately result in death''.

Speaking today some locals agreed with the manager.

Ron Wellard, 77, retired fitter who has lived in Bourton for 50 years said: "Everyone agrees that it's a stupid idea, putting it next to an old people's home."

"The old Co-op would have been better. I can't imagine people living next to the coach parking lane right next door won't be too happy about it, like the people living next door to the old coach park."

"But that's people for you, they buy a house next to a coach park and then moan about the coaches coming past."

"You can come here in the summer, it's heaving with tourists, then after seven o'clock at night it's a ghost town. But they don't live here you see."

"It's like living at the seaside, you never go to the sea if you live at the coast – it's tourists. "

''I want the tourists to come of course, I'm very much live and let live, but they'd mind if I was constantly in Birmingham as a tourist."

Kieron Smith, 72, a former Cotswolds stone tiler by trade who has lived opposite the care home for 12 years, said : "It's the fumes. I'm not worried if they park there, but they don't turn the engines off. "

''All the people that live here, we don't mind if they park there and drop off and clear off straight away, but we don't want them stopping there with the engines running. It's not fair on us when we're sitting in our gardens.

"They're going to come here, drop everyone off, clear off up to where they park, and come back to pick people up. But the councillors don't live here do they? "

''They're not worried about it, they don't live here, they live in the village. They don't have to sit in the gardens having the fumes come over. It's different for them. If you're directly involved then it's not very good.

"You're probably going to be held up for five or ten minutes getting out because it'll be gridlock."

"The emergency services are here quite often with the blue lights going into the old people's home and they're going to be held up."

"Why can't they make the tourists walk the extra short distance so that they're not outside the care home? If they love the village so much, it's only a short distance to the back of the village."

Jayne Conroy, 46, a BnB owner adjacent to the care home, said: "We've been here renting out this holiday let for about 13 years. "

''We have always been in hospitality, but we were in the Lake District before that. It's happening all over the world – it's over-tourism.

"Since Covid it's got worse as well, with lots of people coming in, because a lot of people have found out about these places because they couldn't go abroad with the pandemic. Especially around Easter time, there's a lot of traffic coming in, it's a lot."

"I think already there's a problem even before the changes. With the main road up to Stow and Moreton, you can be talking about waiting an hour in the summer going up and coming down. There's already too much traffic around so that may put people off coming."

"I think it's already so busy with the traffic, but people still come."

"The prices here are another issue. The guests face prices – costs of eating out are really going up. It's not just your accommodation, lunch, dinners have all gone up over the last couple of years. "

''A lot of our guests have been coming to us for years and years and years, and they're not seeing any more quality offered in these restaurants than they were a few years ago, but they're paying a lot more for it, but it's the way the economy is now.

"People are struggling with staff as well with the way of the world at the moment, and with the national insurance contributions going up in April. "

''They're cutting back on staff and then it's poorer quality from not being able to employ the best staff.

"Everyone needs business, so we wouldn't want to say ‘ban them', because people have shops, but I do think there are too many. "

"The way the coach drivers abused the local infrastructure last year was terrible – parking up roads, blocking people's entrances, getting irate. "

''This sort of thing is causing a lot of problems and the bus drivers didn't help.

"I find coaches parking up the sides of country roads and cars can't see round them. Especially when the kids come to school. If you've got coaches coming in then it's going to be blocked up."

"Sometimes we've had two or three coaches pull up in a day, and they don't just drop off and go away, they stay there for long hours."

"If an ambulance is waiting two or three extra minutes to pick someone up at the care home because there's a backlog from the coaches, then that's a problem."

"I fully expect it to be chaos on the road, which is the thing that bothers me. They're going to be building a new over 60s living area down the road, which is a huge piece of land, so there's going to be lorries to build that. Why couldn't that have been the coach parking space? "

''That's what we've been saying over the last few years. Why couldn't they have opened that up, because it's been derelict land, just to let the coaches park on there?

''But I presume it's health and safety and things like that. But then again the coaches have just been parking where they like so where's the health and safety in that?

"They try and push everything up this end of the village, away from the centre, which I understand because there's more pedestrians, but we do get a bit of the raw end of the deal sometimes at this side of the village. They just think they can plonk them up here as it's not affecting them in the centre."

Katie Udell, 33, a shop worker in Bourton has lived in the village for 10 years and in the Cotswolds her whole life.

She said: "I think when you've got schoolchildren and elderly people, alongside the tourists, and it's already chaos at the school in the morning and at pick-up time. "

''It's already chaos and it's going to be even more chaos. But the coaches have to drop off somewhere.

"A shuttle would be a good idea. That would save a lot of aggravation and a lot of people getting wound up. I'm ok with it but you do get people who are quite irate and out-spoken about it."

"They've got to drop off somewhere, and it is safer there than in the middle of the village with everyone trying to cross the roads, but it is a worry with the elderly people and the younger kids because if they get caught within a group of tourists, it's very easy for them to get knocked. "

''My youngest is four but she's very boisterous. But other kids go to school on bikes and scooters and so there's going to be even more chaos and added danger with the coaches.

"The drop off and pick up times of the coaches coincides with the school days too which is an issue."

"There are a lot of tourists, but without them the village would just disappear. If you are going to live in the area, you know that. "

''I don't think you can buy a house and then say it's too touristy. All you have to do is Google Bourton-on-the-Water and you can see pictures of thousands of tourists.

"For the locals who have been here for 50 or 60 years, it's changed a lot and it has got busier, which can be intimidating for them."

"I think the council has gone about it the wrong way. When this was all happening a few years ago, they redid the car park, and I know they can probably make more money out of cars than coaches, but they knew this was going to happen, it doesn't just come out of the blue, so why didn't the at least make half the car park dedicated to coaches, rather than getting to the point where locals were having to try to come up with a solution. They could have approached it better than they did."

"They could have done a few spaces for coaches in the bank car park. It wouldn't have damaged the bank that much from lost revenue daily. If they were given a time limit of two or three hours each there then maybe that could solve it, but I honestly don't know."

Richard Baldelli, 55, is the general manager of the Cotswolds Motor Museum in Bourton and lives in Chipping Camden.

He said: "We get anywhere from around 85,000 to 90,000 people a year through our doors and so tourism is a huge part of our business."

"A lot of the Cotswolds suffers from congestion during the business periods. Living around here you tend to avoid those busy periods to visit places. Whether it puts the tourists off or whether they're resigned to the fact that it's going to be busy, I'm not too sure."

"The whole of the Cotswolds has issues with congestion, availability of parking and traffic, it's the nature of the beast – it's a popular place to visit."

"The coach plans aren't blocking access to the care home. It's less than ideal but at the end of the day it's a public street. It's important here, most of the businesses rely on the tourist trade from some degree to another. That's the same for many rural villages and market towns around here."

"How you mitigate the tourism, there has to be some common sense and some compromises made. As long as residents and businesses are listened to, that's the main thing. "

''The solutions and compromises will hopefully alleviate as many problems as possible, but there will always be people who are more affected than others. But without thriving businesses, then the community suffers more generally.

"I think communication is important. I've seen and read nothing in terms of the solution, how they've come about the decision and why they've decided to implement certain changes. "

''It means residents are better informed. We don't receive anything as a business that says why they've come to the decision and these are the conclusions that have been drawn.

''They haven't even asked us for our opinion on it, which seems to me to be a missed opportunity to understand the implications of a decision or the knock-on effect and build a community-wide consensus."

GCC Highways says it wants feedback from the parish council and local residents during the period. Councilors disagreed on the plans.

County Council leader Stephen Davies said:

''It's not a long-term solution, it's a temporary solution to alleviate the current problem while we work with all those involved including the parish and the district.

"The long-term solution will probably need more work and that will involve discussions with the local businesses as well."