Wealthy foreigners are flocking to New Zealand, but not all Kiwis are happy about their arrival: not least locals who are fed up with their neighbour, Noel Edmonds, of Deal or No Deal and Mr Blobby fame.

Edmonds moved last year with his wife to a small village called Ngātīmoti, in the Tasman region of New Zealand’s South Island. The couple purchased a vineyard and cafe called Dunbar Estates, which they set about adapting into a pleasant English enclave called River Haven, complete with restaurant, general store, and a traditional English pub called the Bugger Inn. The Bugger Inn offers a ‘Dickens Cider’. Edmonds reckons this is ‘Kiwi humour,’ but some locals aren’t so certain. ‘It’s real Benny Hill stuff,’ one said.

‘He’s got this attitude… about how he’s improved the place and made it amazing – it was already amazing,’ one woman told New Zealand news outlet Stuff. ‘I just feel like he’s a coloniser and…he’s come in like the Lord of the Manor.’

Edmonds isn’t alone. While he relocated to New Zealand’s North Island before the pandemic, the onset of Covid and lockdowns encouraged other wealthy westerners to follow suit. Increasingly perturbed by geo-political ructions, deterioration of political orders, climate volatility, cultural anxieties and the possibility of various doomsday scenarios, rich outsiders have taken to eyeing up New Zealand as if it were the world’s panic room.

‘I just feel like he’s a coloniser and…he’s come in like the Lord of the Manor.’

You can see why: the country is geographically remote, sparsely populated, safe and has a moderate climate. James Cameron owns a huge organic farm there. Pop singer Shania Twain bought up 24,700 hectares of rugged and scenic farmland. Former anchor of NBC’s Today show, Matt Lauer, purchased the lease to a massive rural tract. Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal, bought a 477-acre former sheep station. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, told the New Yorker that among the wealthy, “Saying you’re ‘buying a house in New Zealand’ is kind of a wink, wink, say no more”.

In the week following the election of Donald Trump, 13,000 Americans took the first official step toward New Zealand residency by registering with the country’s immigration authorities. Many of these new arrivals have blended in. But Edmonds’ eccentricity has ensured that he has stood out.

The retired TV host has taken to driving around in what one local described as ‘brand new Ford Ranger Wildtraks, jacked up on huge wheels and pimped out with light bars, aerials. You’d have these convoys of vehicles going up and down the valley – everyone was like, ‘what the f… is going on?’’

The heftiest of bank balances, the most accomplished and benign of profiles, the greatest of intentions to promulgate a rural arcadia, and a spirit of positivity eventually, perhaps inevitably, met an indefatigable opposing force: slightly dotty parochial local councils and trusts.

In August, Belinda Crisp, who manages the Nelson Tasman Cycle Trail Trust, visited Edmonds’ River Haven estate to meet Edmonds at his café. Tasman District Council and the New Zealand government have granted permission for the trust to develop a cycle trail along the Moteuka Valley Highway. Crisp had hoped that Edmonds would allow part of the trail to pass through land he owns. She told Stuff, ‘I turned up with a contractor, expecting to have a conversation about practicalities of the project, go for a wander, see how we could make it work for everyone,’ she said.

But she claims the exchange was rather more acrimonious. ‘He started saying how dangerous [the cycle trail] was,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.’

Cyclists who had stopped at the café for refreshment began to leave the venue as Edmonds’ tirade unfolded, Crisp alleges.

‘Don’t even think about having a coffee, having a slice…you are our enemies,’ Edmonds is alleged to have said. ‘Anyway, good luck with it. As we say in Britain, ‘on yer bike’.’

According to Edmonds, his business venture is, ‘costing me a fortune,’ and that if it continues to lose money a year from now, he may need to reconsider whether it is worth continuing to invest in it.’

In response to questions from reporters at Stuff, he said:

‘Please don’t tell me you’re just doing your job because that’s what Belinda [Crisp] said and that’s what the Nazis said. You can judge me how you want, I’m very comfortable, at nearly 75, with the person I am, the place that I’ve found and the way I conduct myself’.

It’s safe to say that some Kiwis might take a bit of time to adjust to Edmonds and other new arrivals.