Cotswolds residents fear 'full-blown theme park' with 'summer parties of music and gin' in 'Britain's prettiest village'

There are fears a trout farm in a tiny picturesque dubbed "one of prettiest in Britain" is being turned into a “full-blown theme park” with "music gin and beer parties planned for this summer". Plans have been granted permission to create a visitor arts, activities and education area as well as remodelling existing fish raceways to form a new lake with a central island at Bibury Trout Farm in the Cotswolds.

The site owners say the fish raceways in the centre of the farm are no longer needed and they want to remove the dividing ground between them to form an enlarged lake with the excavated material used to form a central island. And they want to create an open sided single storey building for use as a visitor arts, activities and education area.

But villagers and Bibury Parish Council are fearful the working farm is gradually being turned into a “theme park” for tourists. And they are alarmed by a notice on the trout farm's website which says they have teamed up with Cotswold Lakes Brewery and Siblings Gin to put on summer parties with music, local beers and gin.

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Bibury’s narrow lanes suffer from constant traffic congestion as tourists flock to see the picturesque village. And local councillors believe the village is already probably the most popular tourist destination in the Cotswolds after Bourton-on-the-Water, Stow-on-the-Wold and Cirencester.

And the high volumes of tourists is causing irreversible damage to the character and appearance of this historic village. Michelle Holt, of Bibury Parish Council, spoke against the proposals at Wednesday's (May 8) planning committee at Cotswold District Council.

“The parish council has serious concerns over the trout farm being fundamentally changed from a working farm with a tourist element to a full-blown theme park," she said. “The drip of planning applications that get permission and change is eroding faith in the planning system.”

She said the parish council was in favour of plans for an agricultural building to include a fishing room and store. But when planning permission was granted it was then changed to a cafe and gift shop.

“Both the application for the erection of roof covering to be used as a visitor, arts and activity and education area and the remodelling of the existing fish raceways to form a new lake with an island seriously undermines the viability of the working trout farm.”

She said the changes were detrimental to the character of Bibury and the local wildlife. “The trout farm also had permission for an overflow car park which is in use but they have so far not delivered the safe access walkway and now further parking area appears to be developed by Shoecroft Barn to which no approval has been granted.”

Suzanne Marshall, an objector and environmental consultant, said the visual impact of the proposals to the Cotswold landscape needs thorough thought. “This is a tiny village with one access road which has a high tourism input every day,” she said. “How will that be managed?”

Councillor David Fowles (C, Coln Valley), who also spoke against the proposals, said the trout farm covers an area of five hectares in Bibury. He said anything which takes place there has a huge impact on the “wonderful and beautiful” village.

Bibury is probably the biggest tourist attraction in the Cotswolds after Bourton, Stow and Cirencester. “But with one essential difference, it is a small residential Cotswold village with tiny lanes and predominantly housing with no retail other than a coffee shop, a pub and a hotel,” he said.

Cllr Fowles said the village is extremely concerned about the trout farm’s “gradual metamorphosis” into a leisure attraction. “Now in addition to the working trout farm we have a huge visitor car park,” he said.

“Converted agricultural buildings that start life as a fishing tack room and become a cafe, gift shop, holiday accommodation and in the eleventh hour we were going to have an application for glamping pods but they withdrew that. It all seems to worry the village dramatically.”

“This is a huge tourist attraction in the middle of a tiny village. The villagers get the village back at about 5.30pm in the evening and they can then live there and work there and enjoy the weekends and the evenings and so on.”

Council officers recommended approving the scheme. And several committee members questioned the need for the planning applications to have been referred to them for a decision.

Councillor Dilys Neill (LD, Stow) said she understood the concerns of residents given the small village is a “honeypot for tourists”. “But I don’t think we can address that in this forum,” she said.

And Councillor Mark Harris (LD, Abbey), who proposed following the officer’s recommendations to permit, said he understood there is concern over what will happen in the future. He told the committee he used to work in Bibury Court Hotel and really likes the village and bought his first car from the long closed Jubilee Garage.

“Bibury is Bibury,” he said. “Everybody wants to go to Bibury in the Cotswolds.

“Bourton-on-the-Water, everybody wants to go to Bourton-on-the-Water. It’s a sad fact of life that those places and others are very popular and very beautiful and people want to hang out there.”

He asked if it was possible for the owners to be asked to work on a masterplan which could help facilitate future development in a managed way. The committee voted to approve both of the applications by seven votes to one.

Bibury Trout Farm has been approached for comment.