Locals in hols hotspot buy creepy abandoned plague quarantine island ‘built on human ash' to escape tourist crowds
Poveglia, just off the coast of Venice, Italy, got the dubious moniker as in the 18 century it was used as a quarantine station during outbreaks of the plague.
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The 18-acre site was also used as a mass burial ground, where some 160,000 victims are thought to have been burned to stop the spread of the disease.
It has been said that even to this day, human ash from these cremations make up more than 50 per cent of the island's soil.
The small island was eventually abandoned in the 1990s tourists are banned from setting foot on the spine-tingling patch of land due to countless crumbling derelict buildings.
However, next month it will be taken over by an activist group Poveglia per Tutti (Poveglia for Everyone), and transformed into an urban park for the Venetians.
The Italian city is a huge tourist attraction with an estimated 30 million people visiting every year.
In an attempt to deter so many people a €5 (£4.40) access charge has been levied which has done little to deter visitors but officials claim it helps them monitor the flow of sightseers.
Cruise ships were banned from arriving in the city in 2021, forcing them to dock on the mainland at Marghera or Ravenna, nearly 90 miles to the south, or at Trieste, nearly 100 miles across the Adriatic.
Tourists are then bussed in to the historic city.
The changes have reduced air pollution in Venice but has not caused a reduction in the number of visitors on cruise ships.
Many locals have been forced to out of Venice and go a live on the mainland due to high housing costs, which have been fuelled by Airbnb as well as a lack of services.
That migration, along with the deaths of an ageing population, has seen the city's population drop by around 10,000 in the past decade.
Figures from 2022 show it dropped below 50,000 and currently stands at 48,342 people.
The activist group has won a six-year lease for the island seeing off its competitors which included the mayor of Venice Luigi Brugnaro, who wanted to build on the land.
The group used the slogan '€99 for 99 years' and asked Venetians to dip into their pockets to help preserve the island from development.
More than 4,600 people donated.
One of the founders of Poveglia for Everyone, Patrizia Veclani, said: 'We woke up with a nest egg of €460,000 and a community full of high-level professional skills.'
The group will pay just a little more than €1,000 a year for the renewable lease.
Joining forces with the group is the University of Verona who will monitor the project's environmental and social impact.
It said its aim was to regenerate the northern part of the island 'transforming it into a lagoon urban park open to citizens and respectful of the ecosystem and the landscape elements that characterise the lagoon'.
Veclani told The Times the university's involvement had played an important part in convincing the Italian national land agency, which runs under the control of the Ministry of Economy, to grant them the lease.
She told the paper: 'Having an academic analysis of the impact is very important for us.
'It means we can be a model for others and there are many more like us throughout Italy.'
Having won the lease, the activists now face a number of challenges.
The island doesn't have any electricity or water.
There is also no satisfactory pier to provide boats to dock.
The kitchen garden, which had once gained a name for itself for its peaches, has been allowed to run wild.
Veclani said: 'Nature has reclaimed it.
'But with the advice of botanists we are considering what appropriate plants can be reinstated. We are lucky to be able to call on many experts.
'The sharing of knowledge has been wonderful. What's important is that it is returning to the city, rather than becoming the umpteenth luxury hotel.'
Brugnaro, who is being investigated for corruption and has denied the accusations, wished the group well.
He said: 'I am on holiday but I can tell you that I am very happy with this solution.'
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