Forty illegal caravans line country lanes and villagers are 'surrounded' by rubbish... so why is NOTHING being done about Glastonbury's caravan slum?

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

Sitting on a vintage patio chair a man wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, a man enjoys a beer as he soaks up the early afternoon sunshine in picturesque Somerset.
Nearby, more than 40 caravans and motorhomes have similar set ups with garden furniture and even makehsift decking.
But this is not your average holiday campsite - far from it.
In fact the battered caravans and converted trucks are line the streets illegally through one of Britain's most iconic villages - Glastonbury.
These squatters are not just here for the summer, they've been a blight on local roads for years, much to the anguish of local homeowners and businesses.
In a recent viral clip a caravan dweller boasted to a YouTuber that he had been squatting illegally on his stretch of road for 'nine years'.
Without a care in the world the man, described as a 'village elder', proudly showed influencer Joe Fish around his community.
He said: 'I've been here nine years now. Nothing was here, one day I decided to come down.
'I've been growing my garden, it's beautiful down here - we have a proper community, we look out for each other.
'I'm sort of like an elder, I'm 61 now, one of the oldest here.'
But while outsiders relish the freedom of living on the edges of society, locals are not impressed with their neighbours due to a string of anti-social behaviours including swearing and public defecation.
Gym owner Adam Shepherd told the Daily Mail: 'We're surrounded by mess, dumped caravans, vans, piles and piles of rubbish, dogs running around while not on a lead, dog excrement, human excrement and I've had threats as a business owner.
'I have no problems with how people want to live – whether it's out of choice or not. We all have hard times. But if that's how you want to live, that's great, but the rest of us have to pay taxes.
'We have to pay to have our rubbish taken, we don't just dump it to be collected and paid for by someone else.'
Ms Osborn added: 'It causes a great deal of problems because we have a lot of people living here who are not contributing.
'If you've got people taking out of the services without putting in, then you can't budget for it. You can't do anything.'
Adam Shepherd, who has been running Sweet Track Fitness on the Morland estate for nine years and revealed the caravan cities are far from innocent and actually affect his business.
He said: 'We're surrounded by mess, dumped caravans, vans, piles and piles of rubbish, dogs running around while not on a lead, dog excrement, human excrement and I've had threats as a business owner.
'I have no problems with how people want to live – whether it's out of choice or not. We all have hard times.
'But if that's how you want to live, that's great, but the rest of us have to pay taxes.
'We have to pay to have our rubbish taken, we don't just dump it to be collected and paid for by someone else.'
This week, The Mail spoke to many in the van-dwelling community and they offered another side of the story.
We found Dan, a Mancunian in his late-50s, sipping beer in the mid-afternoon sun outside his caravan near the former tannery.
He said: 'Sure, there are maybe at the most half a dozen a…….s who are giving all of us a bad name.
'They are horrible to us too. They're not proper travellers. I think the one thing that this group of half a dozen people have in common is mental health problems.
'They have attacked me as recently as today, threatening to kill me and trying to pull down the hurdle fencing I've carefully constructed around my caravan.
'They have dogs that have been biting people and yes, they do s..t in public places and it is disgusting.
'I can understand why the locals are fed up with them because we are too.
'But it's unfair to tar us all with the same brush.
'We mind our own business and ensure we do not tolerate bag hygiene.
'Many of us have built composter toilets and use the waste to grow our own food.
'Any wood we collect is from tree fall and using that keeps the fields and hedgerows tidy.
'Many of us have jobs locally and we get on great with the people of the town.'
Dan's first taste of caravan-dwelling came in the early 1990s after he was sacked from his job as a telex messenger by his boss at Kleinwort Benson, then a leading investment bank in the City of London which has since merged with SG Hambros to become Kleinwort Hambros.
He said: 'I had a pretty good career shaping up with the bank but I overslept one morning and when I arrived at my desk half an hour late my boss sacked me on the spot.
'I moved out of my flat the same day because I knew I'd have no income and felt too disillusioned to bother trying for another job at the time and moved into a squat in Hackney Wick.'
The scourge of Van Life: Why does Glastonbury have a caravan culture
A Somerset Council report estimates there are over 300 van dwellers in Glastonbury.
Caravan residents do not pay council tax and have no legal right to accommodate on their pitches as they do not own them.
In the past, Somerset Council has issued enforcement notices against settlements on brownfield sites in the city.
However, many of the communities situated along country lanes and on smaller rural green field sites have seemingly been allowed to prosper undisturbed.
In March, Somerset Council announced plans to create a regulated site for some of the dwellers.
The site is part of the partially funded Glastonbury Town Deal which acknowledges the area has become an 'unofficial base for communities of travellers and other off-grid dwellers.'
It states: 'The Town Deal is an opportunity to provide support in the form of a new regulated site with permanent pitches. The aim is to improve the situation for roadside dwellers, subject to meeting the eligibility criteria for the new site.'
'Later, I joined the eco protest movement and then moved here because I loved the Glastonbury vibe.
'I've made so many friends here. They're my family.
'Apart from the minority of idiots, we all get on fantastically well. We look out for each other. If someone has no food or wood, we'll sort them out. It's a wonderful community to be part of.
'I never for a moment miss my old life at the bank. Looking back, I realise how boring and conventional it all was. Everything I earned just fed the machine - my rent, fashionable clothing, expensive meals out. I was just spending all my money on stuff I didn't really need.
'This is where `I belong.'
Opposite Dan and sipping from a can of Pimms, is 24-year-old Erin, who spends her summers picking up litter on the UK music festival circuit.
She was born to Romany traveller parents who toured Europe as part of a circus troupe and now lives in a caravan in Glastonbury.
She said she has tried living in bricks and mortar, but left after a few weeks and returned to her van-dwelling life.
Erin, sporting a crew cut hairstyle and tattooed chest, said: 'Having four walls around me was wrecking my mental health. It's been scientifically proven that living in houses or flats put people in a fight or flight state, which is stressful.
'It triggers adverse changes in something called the sympathetic nervous system and it makes people feel trapped and unhappy. People need to live in a way that makes them feel connected to their wider surroundings.
'So many people live their lives surrounded by four walls. They rarely get out and it is so damaging to their mental health.
'Living like we do here, you have to get outdoors, even if it's just to go to the toilet.'
For her, the toilet regime involves a 200-metre walk to a local Brewers Fayre pub restaurant, she says. 'The staff don't mind at all. I'd never relieve myself in public. That would be disgusting.'
Another van-dweller, Leo, 22, was born in a caravan in Glastonbury and has found work locally as a carpenter.
'This life is all I have ever known and I love it.
'My friends and family are around me and I can go out and work locally doing something I enjoy.'
Leo, like many others living off-grid in the town, sources all of his water from the ancient White Spring that has drawn visitors to Glastonbury for centuries.
'It is the healthiest water in the world,' he said.
He added: 'It's sad that some of the locals have complained about us but I have always got on with them well.
'I've never had any bother here, although I spent a few months in Hereford a while ago and someone pulled a knife on me because they didn't want us there. People are more tolerant here, in my experience.
'It's not fair to accuse us of not paying tax, either. The only tax we don't pay is council tax, but we pay plenty of tax on everything else.
'And of course we're not a drain on council services because we don't actually receive any services. No one comes and picks our rubbish up. We have to bundle it up ourselves and take it to recycling centres and public bins, but that's getting more and more difficult because most recycling centres have closed and there are fewer and fewer bins in town.
Nearby, we find Andy, 43, who lives alone in a converted truck on the old tannery site. He said: 'I've tried living in houses and flats and I couldn't stand it. I needed fresh air and a sense of community around me, like I get here.
'Everyone here looks out for one another. I personally haven't had any hassle from the locals, but I'm aware of the reports of ill feeling in certain parts of the town. No one in our community looks for trouble.
'I've lived here since 2000 and every summer I work at the festival site managing a recycling yard. I love it.
'I hope to spend the rest of my days living here like this.'
Andy's dream could be his neighbours nightmare however as many frustrated Glastonbury locals have long complained of the 'scourge' of the van dwellers.
When the Daily Mail visited the town in 2024, tensions were high due to a new commune which had been set up in front of a string of residential homes.
Richard Hill, 47, told the Daily Mail the encampment, which was later shut down, put him at his 'wit's end.
He said: 'It was beautiful here until this mob of hippy thugs arrived.
'We've been sitting here trying to enjoy what's left of the views and had to watch them actually go to the toilet in front of us, in the middle of the field.
'They don't care. We have even seen a naked lady rolling around in the fields. I mean, it is just horrible to look at.
'They never pick up their litter, which I find odd, considering they're supposed to be people who love the earth. They leave their mess and filth strewn all over the place for others to clear up.
'As a result, the waste bins in the town are overflowing and the rubbish is constantly piled up everywhere you look.
'It is so unsanitary, but when you ask them to clear up you get a load of abuse off them. When it comes to foul language, they've got quite a vocabulary.'
2024: Local residents said they were fed up with the hippies' antisocial behaviour
Furious resident Sue Hazlewood, 70, also said she has seen this issue outside her own home.
'The thing is, they just leave them there,' she said. 'And that means the council is going to have to spend more of our money taking them away. There are so many of them that I don't think the local authority has enough money to really clear up after them.
'These people have also caused a huge rat problem with their filth.
'They leave mess everywhere and couldn't care less.
'I've often seen them urinating and defecating right in front of people's homes. It isn't really what you want to see when you're trying to enjoy a nice stroll.'
A spokesman for Somerset Council said: 'In February, we published the Somerset Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy for 2025-2030 which identifies a range of actions we will be undertaking to improve the situation across Somerset. However, this is an incredibly complex issue and one which will require a number of different and sensitive approaches.
'Activities being undertaken by Somerset Council by way of support include the Enabling Project – part of the Glastonbury Town Deal - which aims to improve the situation and with the development of a site to provide permanent provision, in consultation with the relevant communities and subject to deliverability.
'Additionally, the Council recognises that the issue is much bigger than one town and a wider approach is needed going forward.
'We have just secured Government funding from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to undertake a feasibility study that will consider sites in Somerset that could provide a range of designated spaces for temporary and permanent pitches.
'This study will provide the foundation for the Council to consider matters around funding and delivery options for sites across Somerset during 2025/26.
'An additional challenge, however, is finding appropriate sites. Mendip District Council and now Somerset Council have been trying to find land for sites since 2019 and this is complicated by the flood zone proximity to Glastonbury while also being sensitive to the views of landowners.
'We remain committed to finding solutions and our approach is set out in our 2025-2030 strategy.'
A spokesman for Glastonbury Town Council said: 'Glastonbury Town Council works closely with various partners including Somerset Council, as Unitary Authority, on many matters in and around our town. This multi-agency approach devises and implements local solutions and improvements for residents, businesses and visitors alike.'