MP Damien Moore has called for supercar meets to be banned in Southport.
The popular meets regularly attract considerable crowds of delighted onlookers but Mr Moore says: “This is not what we want to see here in Southport.”
One local static car meet group responded: “It would be extremely unfair to propose a ban across Southport in response to a small pocket of antisocial behaviour displayed by others.”
The Southport MP says he has been contacted by constituents concerned about the dangerous nature of an event over the weekend.
Mr Moore says he saw the issue for himself during a walk around the Marine Lake.
Mr Moore said: “I saw big groups of people, and lots of souped-up cars travelling at speed, and driving dangerously, on both the Promenade and in the Marine Drive car park.
“There were families around and I was concerned for their safety.
“These car meet-ups can get lost. First of all, they were speeding and driving dangerously and slamming their handbrakes on as crowds of people watched and filmed them.
“Secondly they were all parked in a pay and display zone but no-one was paying. There was no enforcement at all. I looked at the car windscreens and there were no pay and display tickets on any of them.
“We want to encourage families to come and visit Southport and when they are here we want it to be open and relaxing for them. They shouldn’t be left feeling intimidated. We don’t want these people here discouraging them from doing so or making it unsafe for them to be in the same area. They were all over the car park.
“The police didn’t turn up for a long time but when they did, there were only three of them. There wasn’t a lot they could do with so few officers.”
UKHotcars, who arrange static and stewarded car meets around the town responded: “It would be extremely unfair to propose a ban across Southport in response to a small pocket of antisocial behaviour displayed by others. We feel that we as a collective we may have been tarnished with the same brush. We work so hard year after year to build great relations within our community, safe road use education and also help boost the travel and tourism within our much-loved town.
“Unfortunately, with other events recently taking place as mentioned above by Mr Moore, these unsupervised gatherings have had a poor reflection upon the larger car community.
“It really would be a shame for Southport to lose its main local car event due to the poor management of other gatherings as we at UK Hotcars always run safe events that also positively boosts the travel and tourism industry in the town with members attending from all over the North West. ”
“We must make clear that none of the above recent events taking place have anything to do with our club UK HOTCARS, nor do we condone them. As again public safety is key and with the coronavirus pandemic this year we’ve not deemed it safe under government guidelines to hold a large gathering. As a direct result, we have not hosted anything since the beginning of the year.”
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