Sedgemoor District Council has begun an investigation after ‘boy racers’ were captured on video in a Burnham-On-Sea car park during this week’s snow, with a person sliding behind one car while another vehicle crashed into a set of signs, causing hundreds of pounds of damage.
A local resident shot this video of the incident in Burnham’s seafront car park near to the B&M store at 8.30pm on Thursday.
In the footage, a person is seen being pulled along behind a car so they can slide across the icy car park. Then another vehicle crashes into the parking signs next to a payment machine.
Sedgemoor District Council, which operates the car park, gave its reaction as it faces a bill for hundreds of pounds to repair the signs.
Talking to Burnham-On-Sea.com, the council’s spokeswoman Claire Faun said: “We understand that the car park sign in Pier Street car park was damaged by boy racers skidding about on the snow and ice in the car park.”
“This is very disappointing – their activities could have not only injured someone, but themselves too.”
“We shall be investigating the incident and securing the sign once our clean surroundings teams have finished with their snow, ice and gritting works.”
One nearby resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “This is just the latest example of the boy racers causing constant problems here – it goes on night after night from around 6.30pm onwards.”
“They perform high-speed ‘doughnuts’ around the car park, play loud music, have young people ride on top of the cars, and skid and slide until the early hours of the morning.”
“We couldn’t believe it when one driver crashed into the car park sign this week – for him to damage his car was ‘amusing’ for us to see but worrying.”
The resident adds: “There is lots of CCTV coverage being gathered all around the car park and the footage is passed to the Police. Sadly, at the moment, the Police rarely come out to us when we call.”
“On Thursday night, the Police were called at 8.30pm when this incident happened but they didn’t come out – the problems went on past midnight. We would like to see the car park blocked off at night. Even if part of it was blocked off after B&M closes each night that would be a help.”
”Residents here are absolutely fed up with the problems – we would lock up the car park for the council each evening if necessary. The problems have got to stop for all our benefits – some residents are elderly and are really worried by the ongoing issues.”
A reader also got in touch, saying that the driver who hit the sign was an elderly woman.
