AIBU to expect people to stay away from our AONB?

[Llig]

I live in the North East, a village within an area of outstanding natural beauty. AIBU to want people to stay away for the time being?

People need exercise for sure, totally agree with that. But the swarms of people descending on us right now is an absolute joke. As a village we have (mostly) followed all government guidance, particularly as we have a lot of elderly residents who are at hig risk. Since the rules have been slightly relaxed, our village feels overrun. No social distancing measures by these visitors either. A friend even caught a bloke weeing behind the public toilets as they're currently locked. What is wrong with people?

Anyway, what are your thoughts?

I agree with you to some degree op and I say that living in a large town. It must feel overwhelming at this time to have so many people around. Some of whom seem to be increasing risk by peeing in the open.

However the real fault rests with the government. They have produced yet another guideline that is open to interpretation and designed to cause unrest and tension between the people.

The people who are coming to the area in which you live are filling those new guidelines, so strictly speaking they are doing nothing leagally wrong.

I live a short walk from Roundhay Park. Since lockdown began I have visited it once. It was so busy, with people being awful to each other about social distancing, whilst not bothering themselves, I left and walked up Street Lane instead. I imagine it's much worse now. I can't stop people visiting nice things near my home, but I can avoid the crowds. It will all still be there when things get more like normal. I can't be arsed getting myself wound up/stressed/angry about what others are doing, only bad things lay that way. Chill the fuck out OP!

Ah okay fair one, in which case no paint for you!

YABU Why are your lives more important than those of people living in London and other airport cities?

@NebbiaZanzare tell us more about this Rudolph the Bastard Deer! He sounds delightful!

Some of the people you say aren’t observing social distancing rules might be locals and not necessarily visitors? YANBU for feeling you don’t want people coming, but YABU in that rules are rules, and they’ve been relaxed so people are not actually breaking the rules in visiting. I’m struggling really to see how people are driving any sort of distance to visit anywhere as there are no toilet facilities, so I assume most of the people out and about in your area are pretty local.

Maybe travel further to a different area to get excercise if you don't like it. I live right by very popular prom and it's always busy on sunny days so I won't walk on that said prom... I go somewhere else, until a certain time like 8/9pm it's when it's quite or about 9am or 10am. It's like me creating a thread saying I'm sick of outside visitors swarming to our prom. "Our as in my local neighborhood" They have every right to be there as much as you now, so you have to adjust your thinking and learn to share it.

People in our patch are nowhere near local. We know everyone living in a six mile circle.
The cars all over our verges and tiny green are from towns thirty miles or so away.
Our lives are no more important but for the majority there is a much higher risk. Most of the locals are elderly or disabled. They are entitled to remain safe in their home area.
There are no lavatories but peeing in a bush is generally fine, picnics in the middle of the village aren’t. The exercise business is an excuse. Most don’t wander far from their car.
They get upset when the shepherd or farmer tell them to go back to whence they came but wouldn’t want their old folk put at increased risk. If they want just to exercise do so from the start of a footpath well away from villages; there are plenty.

We will be staying close to our home for the foreseeable - it feels safer that way.

Like the people in busy towns have had to do for 10 weeks?

I guess the problem is that if you live in a town or city it can be incredibly difficult to go out for exercise and maintain social distancing, most pavements are quite narrow, and it's getting harder here as traffic increases and you can't just leap into the road anymore

So people who, for the last 8 weeks have been used to a different idea of social distancing, through necessity, are now in your area. It may seem quiet and spaced your to them

And if you live in a town, you don't have the benefit of beauty around you which makes it mentally much harder

So basically, you live in a lucky spot and don't want to share with those less fortunate

Yep. I'm with everyone else. Its not yours. You are fortunate enough to live in an AONB and have had, I am sure, a much nicer lockdown experience than some because of it. People want a share of it.

Nobody cares any more, nobody is wearing a mask. Its just business as usual.
There are hoardes of Londoners hanging out in our village which means I can't go out at all. I cannot risk getting an infection.

Its a bit much when I can't leave my own home because of sightseers who have driven 3 hours to get here.

It's incredibly selfish, why can't they just stay at home until it's safe to go back to normal.

We live in a rural AONB, it’s a small village very popular with hikers/walkers.

I have no issue with people visiting, we knew it was popular when we bought.

The issue right now though isn’t ‘well you shouldn’t live there if you don’t like tourists’ ffs, that’s like saying ‘well you shouldn’t have bought a sea view if you didn’t want a tsunami’

EVERYTHING else is closed, so whereas before even the busiest bank holiday would have (for arguments sake) 500 visitors. That was when cinemas, shopping centres, museums and every other recreational activity was also open. Now people are solely focusing on AONB which means what used to be 500 visitors is now 1000+ and they’re all grumpy and irritable that anybody else had the audacity to have the exact same idea as them! Not to mention that it’s plain impossible to social distance when too many people are in a small area.
This is why people who live in AONB are pissed off!

@Mmm0th30

What annoyed me was the news story about people running marathon distances during the lockdown. They seemed to think that the 1 hour of daily local exercise didnt apply to them !

There was never a 1 hour rule. So YWBU to be annoyed because the marathon runners did nothing wrong.

@Llig I know what you mean. We live on the outskirts of Northumberland, 5 mins from Bolam so decided to go to the lake for a walk on Thursday. (We has been told by family that they have a 1 way system introduced, lots of signage to make this clear & keeping 2m apart)
People were unable to stick to those simple steps! We encountered:
2 lots of people getting part way around the lake and then turning back on themselves and having to pass others at narrow parts of the path
Lots of litter having been left behind from people have picnics
Lots of dog poo left by inconsiderate owners
Cars parked along narrow roads (as we left) because the car park was full

It's like all logic has gone out of the window. If we had arrived and seen it was busy, we would have gone somewhere else. It wouldn't be so bad if people could stick to common sense and the basics of social distancing!

I agree with you OP , people leaving gates open when livestock is in the field. Dogs off leads, endless litter being left
If people showed respect for the countryside it would be different. They are ruining the very thing they came to enjoy

CherryPavlova
London has the UK's largest elderly population. Large numbers of shielding and vulnerable younger people too. I imagine there's many elderly in other large airport cities too. UK airports have seen hundreds of thousands arrive over the last two months. No restrictions, no checks, no quarantine.
All this talk of villages being rammed, flooded, hordes. Go to an airport. Or London's tube. Then you'll see rammed.

For all any of you know some of the 'hordes' descending might be arrivals from the airports.

If we need unessential travel temporarily stopped, we need to start with the UK airports.

Like a PP says people have always been allowed out for more than an hour's exercise. In the UK. It was different in France, Italy, Spain, etc.

Additionally, lots of the marathon runners might've done it at home in their gardens. I read about one elderly lady who was walking up and down her stairs.

@Mmm0th30 that's because there never has been a "one hour" rule for daily exercise. The rule was once per day. It was never one hour per day.

So if people wanted to go out and run marathons (more fool them) that was perfectly fine.

What is wrong with people?

I’d hazard a guess that they’ve been locked up at home for 7 weeks, maybe in an AOBS (area of outstanding built-up shitiness) and are desperately needing to stretch their legs and get some fresh air?

I was walking Along looking at the beach talking to ds1

And to differentiate between the part of beach At the end of the village where we Live and would regularly go and the end of the beach that is in the other town.........Because to be fair That would take a while...i said ‘you know our beach’ and he said ‘yes’

And i thought

Thank fuck I didn’t say this on mumsnet!!

Luckily we arent particularly rural and The beaches are pretty much used by people within a 10 mile radius i would think...they are not attractive enough to drive for miles put it that way

I can see why people in small places that are overrun are upset, but unfortunately there is nothing they can really do about it, people are entitled to visit

Didn’t we have a thread like this a few weeks ago? Some WUM complaining about the common folk walking down to her village from the modern housing estate?

I think some of the Hyacinths told her she should have known better than to buy within walking distance of the oiks. Might want to take your own advice? Buy a vast Tudor mansion and have a nice high wall to keep the plebs out. But when you step onto public land you have no more entitlement to be there than anyone else.

There is a massive positive to what’s happening in the World. People are starting to do what they should have been doing before! Exercising in the fresh air.

The family next door to me never went out anywhere and the kids never saw the light of day. Now they go out to walk the dog with their Mum, go in the garden a lot more and I’ve even seen them all heading out on their bikes as a family.
This has been a wake up call for a lot of people, myself included.
Outdoor exercise makes you feel great, it takes kids away from the devices and we should have been doing it a lot more.

Judging by the threads on here where a lot of people have said they won’t be going back to the gym and what I’ve seen in my neighbourhood you may need to get used to “your” village becoming permanently busier.

It’s annoying for you I’m sure but it’s the right thing for the nation. I hope it continues.

I totally agree with you OP (live on the edge of a tourist hot spot myself), but thousands won't. I would love to get out into the mountains, but it would mean too long of a journey by public transport. So I don't. They'll still be there when we learn how to live with this virus.

It's thoughtlessness & self-centredness.

We all need to start behaving as if we are carrying the virus. And then think about the impact of our behaviour with that thought in mind.