‘We found soiled pants on the verge’: The sleepy village reduced to ‘chaos’ by plane spotters

With its stone cottages, Victorian church and cosy pub, Marston Meysey (population 220) is a village on the egde of the Cotswolds with a quaint charm and laid-back air.

It’s the kind of place where everyone knows – and is happy to help – everybody else. A forthcoming quiz night at the local pub, The Old Spotted Cow, is even billed as “reasonably easy”. Harmony, it seems, prevails in this sleepy, pretty, friendly little corner of rural Wiltshire.

Or at least it did until a huge influx of plane spotters brought “chaos” to the close-knit community, clogging the road with their cars and answering calls of nature in the bushes. None of which has gone down well with the usually placid and always polite villagers.

The problems started after the Government agreed to let the US air force (USAF) use RAF Fairford, which is within walking distance of Marston Meysey, as a base for “defensive operations” against Iran earlier this month.

This sparked great excitement in the plane-spotting fraternity because it offered the chance to see and photograph B-1 and B-52 long-range bombers in the air after takeoff or as they come in to land. Hundreds of their ilk have flocked there from across the UK and abroad to catch a glimpse of the mighty warplanes in action.

“We’re a very small village,” says charity worker Kirsty Payne, 57, as she (accompanied by her 14-year-old dachshund Coco) shows me around Marston Meysey – which has around 60 houses lining its only road, roughly half a mile long, called The Street.

“Usually, it’s a lovely, lovely place to live. We’re used to plane spotters, or aircraft enthusiasts as they prefer to be called, coming because we’re so near the air base. But not in these vast numbers. We’re getting swamped.

“It’s usually a two-way road through the village,” she adds, “but there’ve been so many cars parked all the way along it’s reduced it to a single-track situation. An ambulance couldn’t get through, you can’t turn round, and it’s caused complete traffic chaos. The village grinds to a halt.

“The majority of the plane spotters are courteous, and most don’t really engage with the local community. But a small number of inconsiderate people have made life a misery. One lady was coming out of her house with her children; her driveway was blocked, and when she asked if the driver would mind moving the car, she was met with abuse and swearing.”

We bump into Carol Locke, 69, who has lived in the village for 22 years. “It’s not so bad with the parking today, but sometimes it’s horrendous: you can’t move for plane spotters or get in or out of the village… they’re everywhere,” she says.

The area the plane spotters head for is up a track leading off from the top end of The Street. They can get right up to the wire-mesh fence surrounding the air base.

RAF Fairford is on the border of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Other roads surrounding the air base have been closed by the authorities in Gloucestershire to “address safety and access issues” after the area first became popular with those eager to spot planes. The residents of Marston Meysey, near Swindon, which falls under Wiltshire’s control, are questioning why the same has not been done in their village.

Villager Roger Baskerville, 62, a director of software companies and himself an aviation enthusiast, is among them: “If it’s the weekend or the plane spotters know there’s meant to be a large take-off or landing, hundreds descend. It’s very frustrating. People live in villages because they don’t want congestion. We need some kind of emergency traffic restriction while this mission is going on.”

After the short walk from Payne’s home, parts of which date back to 1844, to Baskerville’s, Payne takes us to meet another concerned villager, Dave James.

“The plane spotters – rubberneckers, I call them – know this is the place to come and are using our village as a free car park,” says the 71-year-old retired car parts distributor. “It’s dangerous, it causes havoc, and we seem to be the lost community of Wiltshire here. It’s a nightmare, a complete nightmare.”

Wiltshire Council says the police are responsible for ensuring highway safety, and officers had issued “warnings where appropriate” last weekend. It is also urging residents to report vehicles causing an obstruction or posing a safety risk to the police.

A green privacy screen has been hung on the wire mesh fences all around the base. But it hasn’t put people off: the plane spotters bring ladders so they can peek over the top to see what’s going on and take their photos. Yet they say they’re happy to follow the rules, including not taking photos of USAF personnel. The USAF, for its part, has said it constantly assesses “a variety of factors that determine what measures we institute or modify to protect our installations, our people and their families”.

The visitor numbers at the base itself also pose additional problems: “The unsavoury health hazard of human waste” is how Payne, a Marston Meysey resident for 19 years, describes it. “There are no toilet facilities down there. They’re there all day long. So the hedgerows and fields are getting used as a toilet. Wildlife and the environment will suffer. We can’t walk our dogs down there at the moment because there’ve been reports of human excrement and toilet paper. When I was up there a couple of days ago, we found a pair of men’s soiled pants on the verge.”

When we visit on a sunny weekday, there are at least 30 cars parked on the verge on the lane leading to the air base fence by noon. Villagers say it has been “ten times worse” at weekends when the parking extends through the village.

(Wiltshire Police inspector Scott Anger and a sergeant turn up in the morning to “make an assessment” and say they have “no concerns at the moment”.)

Amongst the plane spotters themselves, there’s a palpable frisson of excitement. One describes it as an “unprecedented chance to see live operational missions being prepared and taking off” and is delighted to see the bombers “used for the purpose for which they’re designed.”

“My being here isn’t necessarily indicative that I support what these aircraft are doing, but – how can I describe it? – it’s like if you’re a football fan and your team draws Manchester United in the cup,” says the enthusiast, who does not wish to be named.

Colin Jenkins, 81, a retired electrician, woke up at 5am to drive from Bristol with his son Mark Jenkins, 54, an upholsterer. They were delighted to have arrived in time to see two B-1s taking off at around 8am. “You don’t see these aircraft on a regular basis. It’s a golden opportunity,” says Colin.

“I’m fascinated by these bombers because they’re bigger and louder than anything else and an incredible feat of engineering,” adds Mark. “We’ve got our fingers crossed for some B-52s later.”

Many of the plane spotters have airband scanners. “They can help to know when something’s happening as you might hear some chatter between the control tower and a particular aircraft, maybe asking about a flight plan or giving permission to start engines, but it’s sometimes hard to know which aircraft they’re talking to,” says Mark.

“You could not do this anywhere else in the world,” says another enthusiast in his 60s, “and so it’s no surprise that those of us with this peculiar interest are congregating here. There are Dutch, French, Spanish and people driving all the way down from Scotland.

“Frankly when you see one of these heavy strategic bombers taking off with a full fuel and bomb load it is a sight to see and hear – the ground shakes.”

While they wait hopefully for more action during the afternoon, some plane spotters sit in camping chairs; others lie on the ground for a snooze in the sunshine.

Chris, 59, a mechanical and electrical engineer from Birmingham, says he understands the villagers’ concerns but insists “the majority of plane spotters are respectful” and had “decorum” regarding toilet arrangements.

Meanwhile Andy Kenyon, 61, a retired accountant from Stratford-upon-Avon with more than 30 years’ experience as a plane spotter, reckons it’s not “proper enthusiasts” causing the problems.

“You get people coming down just to have a look and take a picture on their mobile phone because they’ve heard about the planes taking off on social media,” he says.

“They don’t know one plane from another. They don’t know about not filming air base personnel, which we know you just don’t do. It gives us proper enthusiasts a bad name and spoils it for everyone – and means it’s more likely the authorities will close it off.”

Unless that happens, or the war ends soon, the villagers of Marston Meysey may face many more days of misery before the peace and quiet they hold so dear is finally restored.

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