English Town's Roundabout Overrun by 150 Gnomes; Council Says It Has 'No Specific Policy on Gnomes'
Gnome Man's Land, near Long Eaton station, now has a petition, a Facebook page and gnomes of Dolly Parton and Tim Curry.
Commentary · Humour Real news, with jokes. The facts are sourced below; the snark is ours.
Britain has a problem with potholes, a problem with trains and, in one part of Derbyshire, a gnome situation that is getting out of hand.
The Sawley roundabout next to Long Eaton railway station, where four busy junctions meet, has become “Gnome Man’s Land.” It is now home to more than 150 garden gnomes, the Nottingham Post reports, and more keep arriving.
How it started
It began with a shed. The couple behind the project, who stay anonymous like a Banksy of garden ornaments and answer journalists only over Messenger, found some “tatty” gnomes during a summer clear-out, the BBC reports. They didn’t want to send them to landfill. “We thought, why not put them on the little island in Sawley and hopefully spread a bit of happiness?” Mrs Gnome told the Nottingham Post. “We never imagined for one minute what it would turn into.”
What it turned into is a community gnome-rescue operation. Locals donate unwanted gnomes, and the couple repaint them, weigh them down with sand and concrete, and set them in the middle of the island, well away from the traffic. Erewash Sound reports that recent arrivals include gnome tributes to Dolly Parton and Tim Curry, and that the Frank-N-Furter one has carefully painted fishnet tights.
Gnome rules
The couple are sensible about scale. “We won’t take too many,” Mrs Gnome told the BBC. “We had one lady who wasn’t local offer us 200 gnomes just the other week.” That would have more than doubled the population, which even the most pro-gnome resident might call overdevelopment.
They have also started a petition to rename the roundabout officially, and they plan to decorate it for Christmas.
The council’s view
Derbyshire County Council leader Alan Graves said: “This roundabout is making a lot of local people smile. While we don’t have a specific policy on gnomes, it needs to meet the normal safety, planning and maintenance requirements to ensure it doesn’t create any issues, which we will continue to monitor.”
“No specific policy on gnomes” may be the most British thing a council has said this year. It’s also reassuring that somewhere in local government, someone is now keeping an eye on the gnomes.
The Snark take
Plenty of news this week was grim. A roundabout of rescued, repainted gnomes cheering up commuters is not. If they ever reach a population of 200, the council may need that gnome policy after all.