Action on car cruisers welcomed by residents
POLICE ISSUED DISPERSAL ORDER IN BID TO STOP GATHERINGS
RESIDENTS near to a wide stretch of road between Sneinton and Colwick say they welcome action to stop boy racers.
Police made the move last weekend to halt the nuisance by issuing a dispersal order, meaning so-called car cruisers on Daleside Road between Meadow Lane and Byron Close in Colwick could be prosecuted.
It lasted between 7pm on Saturday at 7pm and 1am on Monday. Police said they had received an “increased number of calls over the past few months” about their alarm and distress in the wake of car meets.
But when the Post went to speak to residents on Tuesday, some said it had been going on for years. Gina Omezi has lived on Byron Close, at the Colwick end of Daleside Road for half a decade and says she can remember it happening since she moved in.
She said: “It’s very loud. Sometimes it can be into the early hours of the morning. Of course it gets on your nerves. It’s very annoying and noisy. I don’t really sleep with the windows open because of it.
“I’m just waiting to hear a loud bang one day and it’s a massive accident or something. We’re literally waiting for a crash. In an ideal world it’d be stopped.
“It’s a fast road - and this house is after the speed cameras so we get all the problems.”
Daleside Road forms part of a circuit for the drivers, who also use Lady Bay Bridge and go past Meadow Lane football stadium and the City Ground. Along with Daleside Road East, it is a 40mph A-road, not a dual carriageway – but there are bus lanes on either side, making the road wide in places.
John Perry and Shannon Walker, who also live on Byron Close, say they have encountered the bad driving behaviour themselves. Shannon said: “There’s been one or two incidents where we’ve been driving into town and we’ve seen those drivers and had to avoid them. It makes you a little bit nervous. We’re new drivers as well, which makes it more intense.
“We’ve seen police chasing them a few times,” added John. “One time, driving to pick Shannon up, there was about ten cars driving around the roundabout at about 50 or 60 miles per hour. They went up onto the roundabout and almost off the road. I had to slow down to about 20mph just in case.
“It definitely should be stopped. I didn’t feel safe and I was in a car. You can imagine what it’d be like for someone at the traffic lights.”
Near the roundabout is the East Point retail park, which the dispersal order covered, and numerous businesses on a nearby industrial estate. But there are two houses just a few metres down.
Angela Websell lives in one of them – she has done for 34 years but she says it is only in the past few months that she has noticed the problem.
“Oh yeah, we hear it,” she said. “It’s ridiculous, honestly. It does impact me when I’ve got to get up early for work. They park all along here. It’s not just cars – there’s motorbikes, they’re doing wheelies and everything. My sister lives in Colwick ages away and they can even hear it.”
“The police wouldn’t be able to arrest all of them. There’s loads, absolutely loads. I let them get on with it but some one’s going to get hurt. They really are.”