We live in idyllic town but it’s SWARMING with ‘eyesore’ caravans blocking our streets… now we’re hitting back

LOCALS living in an idyllic town have slammed “eyesore” caravans blocking their streets.

For five days every summer more than 200,000 music lovers descend on to camp and watch some of the world’s greatest musicians.

But while most leave the world famous festival with just sore heads, an “unprecedented”; number of caravan-dwellers have been accused of causing major headaches for local residents.

The situation has got so bad, some streets are lined with row upon row of ramshackle caravans with locals branding the occupants “hippy thugs”; who have turned their community into a “shanty town”;.

The Somerset town of Glastonbury – seven miles from the Worthy Farm festival site – has the highest ratio of caravans to homes in the country, local politicians revealed this week.

More than 300 caravans are parked up on roads around the town, which has just 4,000 homes.

The ratio is 23-times higher than nearby Bristol which is dubbed Caravan City.

Councillor Susanna Hart said: “Glastonbury is facing an unprecedented challenge with roadside caravans, with more than 300 vans now parked on roadsides in and around the town.”

She dubbed the conditions “unsustainable” and argued the council can “no longer ignore it”.

Meanwhile local Helen Morris, 79, “I think it’s disgusting that they are allowed to live here.

“They’ve parked directly on our road in the past and I’ve called the police because of the noise and mess.

“They make such a mess with their rubbish, I’d like them to disappear and think the council should do something about it.”

But when Flying Eze spoke to some of the town’s caravan community this week they insisted they are honest and hardworking people who are “treated like scum”; by their neighbours.

On one road near the edge of town – lined with dozens of caravans – Ras Khalin, 61, a rastafarian musician told us he has lived on a narrow strip of verge between the tarmac and a stream for the last nine years.

He said: “People think everybody down here is scum but I’m an upstanding citizen, when people come to the camp and see my caravan they say ‘I’d give up my house tomorrow for this’. They are envious of us.

“People are getting forced into debt by rent and bills but we don’t pay anything – most caravans have a wood burner and we collect the wood ourselves.

“The down side is in winter these are like sardine cans so as much as you heat it it leaves just as quickly.

“There is a good community down here apart from a couple of people.

“Some people do not behave responsibly, some have mental health problems, some have substance problems and some like me just want to live in nature and grow their own food.

“We’ve had killers living in caravans down here, one was here named James who stabbed an elderly man in town, it was all over the news.

“Somebody else stabbed a dog and blew up a caravan so you can see why people give us a bad name.”;

James O’Connor, 45, originally from Dundee, fatally stabbed 89-year-old Frederick Burge in Glastonbury on February 26, 2023.

He pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility last year because he was hearing voices and is currently indefinitely detained at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.

Mr Khalin said a lack of mental health support available in the town was worsening issues in his community.

He said: “These people are the bottom of the pile, they have been forgotten and abused. They need help and support but the council doesn’t want to know.

“I have to police it myself because the police don’t often come down here and I don’t want theft or trouble.

“We are left alone down here because we’re out of the way and tourists don’t see us but people who stay in the town centre are told to move within a week.”;

Further along the road we met Quentin Grugeon, 50, who has lived in a caravan in Glastonbury with his dog Bobby, three, since 2020.

He says caravan dwellers from all over the country are drawn to Glastonbury because of its tolerant attitude.

He said: “There’s probably more people who work down here than in the town.

“The traveller and festival people are amalgamated into this town but we have a situation where most of the people arguing against us don’t have any connection with the alternative community.

“Glastonbury has always been magical to us, people come here looking for a higher consciousness.

“We’ve become such a large amount of people because of the housing crisis in the rest of the country. The stability of Glastonbury as a place for low-impact living has been recognised.

“There are people in their 20s living here who have no chance of being able to rent a flat without parents who can be guarantors, it’s just impossible.

“We’re making the best of what we’ve got.”;

The town's Zig Zag building has become a Mecca for caravanners.

Although they don’t own it, they have decked out the derelict factory’s three floors with second hand furniture, sofas, clothes rails and even a giant disco ball. Swathes of caravans surround it.

The local council ruled it’s not fit for human habitation and gave the 20 occupants until the end of last month to move out.

But the building’s owner Chris Black said he cannot comply with the ruling because “it is not achievable and is also not reasonable” to make people homeless.

‘I would be homeless if not here'

Meanwhile, carpenter Ash K previously rented a shared house in Oxford but after losing his job during Covid he moved to Glastonbury and has lived in a caravan for the last five years.

He said: “People have a problem with us because we’re not sticking to what everybody else is doing and we’re saving a lot of money because of that.

“I work as a carpenter but it’s incredibly hard for me to save up for a house so I’d have to pay somebody else to live in their house.

“There’s a lot of people doing different things. We’ve got people doing Tarot readings, people working in bakeries, working at Clarks Village.

‘We’re doing normal jobs but we just don’t want to pay rent and get stuck in a place where we are constantly paying somebody else and will never have anything ourselves.

“We keep it as clean as possible and take our rubbish away. I don’t mind if they think we’re scary people because it keeps them away.”;

It’s not clear how many occupants of the town’s 300 caravans are choosing an alternative lifestyle but one resident estimated around 80% are there because they can’t afford anything else.

There were signs of the community spirit including a shower in a garden shed that is free to use. It comes as many of the local churches and community groups no longer allowed the growing number of caravan-dwellers into their facilities.

Another resident, Leighton, 51, said: “I would be homeless if not here. Before this I was homeless living for years in a tent so this is a step up from that.

“Like any community groups we have some polar extremes at both ends of the spectrum but we are a community that looks after ourselves because we don’t get much help from anyone else.”;