The 60 inhabitants of the Dutch village of Kinderdijk have long been vastly outnumbered by the hordes of tourists drawn to the Unesco world heritage site’s 18th-century windmills.

Now, amid rumours that the latest business plan for the village involves an increase in visitor numbers from 600,000 to 850,000 and a second dock for passing cruise ships, they say they have had enough.

Tourists arriving at the village’s two museums are being handed cards which read: “600,000 visitors a year. Sixty inhabitants #overtourism”.

A family on bikes takes in the sights of Kinderdijk. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Petra Hoek, the 10th generation of her family to live at mill number five, said the tourists had shown too little respect for the inhabitants of the 19 windmills in Kinderdijk, situated east of Rotterdam where the Lek and Noord rivers meet.

“We’ve been living here since 1747,” Hoek told the De Volkskrant newspaper. “Tourists just walk into my yard. With my oldest daughter, I once had dinner on the pavement. A tourist told us to move aside so that he could photograph the mill better.

“We got out of bed once in the morning, and then a Japanese couple sat at my garden table to have breakfast,” she said. “Recently a photographer came to me angry [about] why the sails of the mill were on the other side. That way he could not photograph the scene nicely.”

Cold weather in Kinderdijk. Photograph: Action Press/REX/Shutterstock

Peter Paul Klapwijk, a second resident behind the campaign, said locals did not want to kill off the tourist industry but that there had to be limits if the character of the village was to be saved.

“The tourists are very important for the area, but they are becoming too much,” he said. “In 2010, a business plan was written for this area, stating that the area could have a maximum of 400,000 visitors per year. Now there are already 600,000 and there are plans ready for 850,000.

“Until recently there was one museum mill, now two, [then] a third was announced. Soon we all have to go and all the mills will become museums.”

Overnight snowfall in Kinderdijk. Photograph: Rick Nederstigt/EPA

Eight years ago, the World Heritage Foundation Kinderdijk, which owns the land, almost went bankrupt.

The annual report shows that in recent years the foundation has raised €4.3m in access fees, parking tickets, payments from mooring cruise ships, and the sale of souvenirs, retaining €2.5m to its reserves.

Johan Mellegers, a director of the foundation, said the residents’ complaints were part of a political campaign and denied any plans to increase visitor numbers or open a new dock for cruise liners.

He instead accused Klapwijk of seeking to burnish his credentials ahead of elections for the city council of Molenlanden.

“The residents are very divided among themselves,” Mellegers said. “This is a political action for him to come to the city council.”

Klapwijk responded: “I want to pay attention in the city council to the problems at Kinderdijk, not the other way around.”