OUTRAGED residents are urging tourists not to visit a popular North Tyne beauty spot after dozens of visitors travelled to the site over the weekend. 

Social media posts from local residents on Saturday showed cars lined up along the roads around Hareshaw Linn in Bellingham. 

Scores of visitors travelled to the village after the Government's relaxed lockdown measures allow people to travel long distances to exercise. 

In a bid to curb the number of visitors a local resident, who wished to remain anonymous, displayed posters throughout the village and on cars at the popular tourist site. 

"Closed" posters claiming to be from the Northumberland National Park Authority also appeared around the site alongside a chain wrapped around an entrance gate. 

However they have since been removed after it was claimed they were made by local residents and not the authority. 

Amy Riley, whose house overlooks the Hareshaw Linn car park, said 48 cars were counted around the site on Saturday. 

She explained: "I work in the Co-op and most of the shops need the tourism to survive, but people are not thinking properly.

"The Linn is a single track and there's no way you can social distance on it.

"Today (Sunday) is the same. People are starting to come again. The car park is full and it's just constant up and down with cars."

Charlotte Brown, who works at Bellingham Country Store, said the number of cars that had visited the area was "absolute carnage". 

"I was stuck in the store so I didn't see many tourists in my shop," she said. 

"But people flooded the bakery, the Co-op and the paper shop.

"The car park was an actual nightmare. It was disgusting."

The Northumberland National Park Authority has reiterated its message, advising people to stay away from the areas within the park.

Charlotte added: "I can understand people being stuck in the city and wanting to get out, but if I was going to do that I would think twice about it. 

"We expected to see an increase in visitors, and we appreciate every tourist we get, but not that much. The floodgates had opened.

"The Linn car park was the busiest I have ever seen it. Residents were all going bezerk."