Loud parties, sex and karaoke means a luxury glamping site could be faced with closure after neighbours have complained about the noises they hear.
Secret Garden Glamping claims to offer campers a ‘taste of life’s simple pleasures’ and a ‘home-away-from-home during your holiday in the New Forest’.
But the two-tent campsite, set up behind a three bed semi-detached house in Lymington, Hampshire New Forest, has not been able to seduce the neighbours.
One nearby resident wrote to the local authority protesting that they had had to listen to ‘deluded’ renditions of 1980s hit Islands in the Stream by ‘over and over’.
Another said she has had to ‘awkwardly’ hear people having ‘sex in the thin tents’.
According to the campsite’s website, it has been running for four years and provides spaces for guests’ to ‘rest, relax and play in’.
But following complaints from neighbours – some of whom have made recordings of loud dance music coming from the garden – council workers have started to investigate.
Inside one of the luxury glamping belle tents advertised on the website
Secret Garden Glamping claims to offer campers a ‘taste of life’s simple pleasures’ and a ‘home-away-from-home during your holiday in the New Forest’. Pictured: ‘Belle’, advertised on the glamping website
But the two-tent campsite, set up behind a three bed semi-detached house in Lymington, Hampshire New Forest, has not been able to seduce the neighbours. Pictured: Mel Sims in her garden which backs onto the glamping site
The owner of the site, Liz Feay, sought official planning permission for the ‘use of part of garden as a glamping site for five months a year’.
After a planning meeting held earlier this month – described by one neighbour to show ‘local democracy in action’ – her application was recommended for refusal and the romantic glamping site is now at risk of having to close.
Mel Sims’ lives directly behind the garden of the £405,000 property and when the 51-year-old bought her three bed semi-detached house in December 2022 – she ‘had no idea’ of the ‘glampsite’ operating behind her house.
The ADHD coach said: ‘I probably should have been warned.
‘I didn’t think anything of it in December but as summer started I heard noises out there.
She added that the summer months are particularly problematic when trying to enjoy her garden space.
Ms Sims said: ‘This shed here backs onto the yurt so ultimately when it’s the summertime, if you are sat here then you can hear all the conversations – you can hear sex in the tent.’
She explained how when she sits outside with her 13-year-old daughter they can often overhear ‘private conversations’ and rows when the happy campers are ‘all a bit drunk’.
But following complaints from neighbours – some of whom have made recordings of loud dance music coming from the garden – council workers have started to investigate. Pictured: The home which has a campsite at the bottom of the garden
The campsite advertises two five-metre bell tent areas in the space outlined in the picture
Mel Sims’ lives directly behind the garden of the £405,000 property and when the 51-year-old bought her three bed semi-detached house in December 2022 – she ‘had no idea’ of the ‘glampsite’ operating behind her house
She added that the summer months are particularly problematic when trying to enjoy her garden space.
She explained how when she sits outside with her 13-year-old daughter they can often overhear ‘private conversations’ and rows when the happy campers are ‘all a bit drunk’
However, the mother feels there is no way she can complain and said, ‘how do you contact someone over there’.
Ms Sims added: ‘We don’t need any more campsites in the New Forest. We are thick with campsites – I don’t need one in my garden.’
Last month, Ms Feay applied to the New Forest District Council (NFDC) for full planning permission of the glamping business.
In a covering letter to NFDC, her planning agent said the application was submitted after ‘enforcement enquiries’ were made about the business last year.
After the initial application was made, residents’ took to the online planning portal to voice their objections to the site.
In her objection, Ms Sims wrote: ‘I live directly behind this garden and see the tent top from my windows. I bought this house last year, thinking it was in a quiet cul de sac.
‘That is until people come to stay there……The noise from this garden/field in the summer is too much often past midnight.
‘There is music, loud chat, sex in the thin tents we all awkwardly hear and swearing. I do not want to back onto a clamping or campsite.’
Another neighbour, Stephanie Glasspool, said she is also forced to listen to ‘people having sexual intercourse’ which is ‘far beyond what one would expect in a residential family neighbourhood’.
For Daniel Wells, the relaxed nature of the campsite means it can disrupt his family during weekdays.
He said: ‘Most upsetting perhaps is that on several occasions we have had to close the window to block out the sound of a couple engaging in acts of a sexual nature, which the fabric walls of a tent clearly did not, and do not contain.
‘There was a karaoke machine there for a time and on one notable sunny afternoon whilst trying to enjoy our garden with friends, we had to instead listen to a couple blaring out ‘Islands in the Stream’ over and over, deluded in thinking they were Dolly and Kenny.
Pictured: One of the camping areas advertised on the glamping website
Last month, Ms Feay applied to the New Forest District Council (NFDC) for full planning permission of the glamping business. Pictured: The camping area advertised on the glamping website
After the initial application was made, residents’ took to the online planning portal to voice their objections to the site
Ms Sims wrote of the loud noises and how she can see the top of the tents from her window in the complaint
‘This same karaoke machine was used top volume at 6am by a child yelling into the microphone.’
Living nearby, Andy and Gillian Doel spoke of their frustration and said during the summer they even get ‘ash’ in their garden from the campfires.
Mr Doel, 58, said: ‘We camp. Most campsites have rules about noise. But, they are people from London that have never camped.
‘To me, it’s just an unreasonable, unneighbourly thing to do.’
Mr Doel said he fears if the planning approval is accepted, other houses with big gardens will also do the same.
He said: ‘Where does it stop with Lymington. Look at all the gardens that could have glampsites – it’s madness.
‘How many houses in Lymington are going to do the same?’
The retired chemical engineer said in the summer he hears ‘thunka, thunka, thunka’, from the ‘bass’ of the music played by guests.
‘If a neighbour was making noise, I wouldn’t think anything of it,’ he said.
‘After a week, of that, you would say something to your neighbour and expect them to do something about it. If they do it for a year… it’s just not heard of.
‘We’re not just trying to be nimby. Next door has been sold to a developer and we need more houses. I’m not against things being built but you do need to be neighbourly and considerate.’
His wife, also a former chemical engineer, said: ‘It looks great, if it was a glampsite in the middle of nowhere then that would be great.
Living nearby, Andy and Gillian Doel spoke of their frustration and said during the summer they even get ‘ash’ in their garden from the campfires
The retired chemical engineer said in the summer he hears ‘thunka, thunka, thunka’, from the ‘bass’ of the music played by guests
‘But, we have five months of it.’
The 58-year-old added: ‘Last summer was the tipping point because there was a lot more [guests] and a lot more antisocial behaviour.’
According to the website, guests can book to stay in one of the two tents named ‘Flora’ and ‘Belle’ from May to September.
On Booking.Com, a two night stay in one of the ‘luxury’ tents is priced at £206 and previous guests have described it as a ‘little gem in the heart of Lymington’, ‘exceptional’ and a ‘perfect gateway weekend’.
Members of the Lymington and Pennington Town Council planning committee have now voted against Ms Feay’s application and recommended that NFDC reject it.
NFDC is expected to make a decision on the application before March 6.
Ms Feay, who says she is a ‘born and bred New Forest girl’ with a ‘genuine love for the area, and the people who live here’, declined to comment.
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