Should villages ban coaches?
Some villagers are fed up with traffic jams and crowds.
What you need to know
Coaches are a cheap way to travel. They can carry up to 100 passengers in one vehicle, instead of people using lots of cars. This is better for the planet.
Around the UK, coaches transport many people, including taking 600,000 children to school daily.
However, small country lanes and quiet villages aren’t built for such large vehicles. A coach is around 12 metres long and 2.5 metres wide.
A village recently voted to ban tourist coaches. Residents want coaches to drop off passengers outside the village and make them walk to the village instead.
If you’ve ever been on a school trip you’ll know coaches are a fun way to travel. As well as giving passengers an opportunity to sing songs, share snacks and make friends, coach trips are a great way to explore new places. However, not everyone agrees. The local council in Bourton-on-the-Water, a village in the Cotswolds, England, wants to ban coaches. With its model village, motor museum and nature reserves, Bourton is popular with tourists and 160,000 visitors arrived in about 3,000 coaches last year – that’s an average of nearly 58 coaches every week. Some residents welcome tourists because they spend money in local businesses. However, others are fed up with huge vehicles blocking narrow roads. What do you think? Should coaches be banned from villages?
Yes – they create traffic chaos
Coaches are a great way to get around if you’re travelling along a motorway or touring towns and cities but they aren’t built for country lanes and villages. Without proper parking for them, they have to turn around in tight spaces, which is dangerous. When coaches stop on double yellow lines and block traffic, or try to reverse up small driveways that are meant for cars, it’s no wonder villagers get fed up. What’s more, bringing in thousands of visitors during peak holiday season makes villages like Bourton – home to around 4,000 people – overcrowded and can spoil the place for residents. Some older cities with narrow streets have rules about where coaches can go, so why can’t villages do the same?
No – tourism helps villages thrive
Coaches bring lots of visitors into villages, where they spend money in local shops, cafés and restaurants. This is good news for business owners who rely on tourism to make a living. If they have fewer customers they might need fewer staff, which reduces the number of jobs available for people who live there. Banning coaches is also unfair to people who don’t have a car or prefer to use public transport. Trains don’t go everywhere and lots of people rely on coaches to get around. Why shouldn’t everyone be allowed to enjoy villages and the countryside? A ban would also affect lots of school trips that use coaches for transport. This makes it harder for children to learn about places they may not visit otherwise.