A "Fast and Furious” style car meet is facing calls for a ban after residents complained that streets are being turned into a racetrack. The Big Birkenshaw Takeover, organised by the Lanarkshire Outlawz group, has brought hundreds of car enthusiasts to an unlicensed event at a retail park just yards from a housing estate.
Previous events in Birkenshaw and elsewhere have seen cars racing time trials along public roads and burning rubber as they do “ donuts ” on the street - just like the antics on the Fast and Furious movie series, starring Vin Diesel and Ryan Reynolds.
The local B&M store was forced to hire a security team and spend thousands of pounds on emergency fencing to keep cars out of its car park ahead of one of the big events on Saturday night, which attracted hundreds of people.
The shop has also been forced to clear up huge swathes of waste after people simply discarded food and old booze bottles and cans behind them. Another store, which used a chain to block off its car park for a previous event, reported that louts using bolt cutters simply cut through the cordon.
One resident at Second Avenue in Birkenshaw, Uddingston, said: “The event has been pretty menacing in the past and noise has been so loud that several people have been forced to move out of their homes for the night.
“One woman moved out because it was distressing her daughter, who is disabled, and another couple of residents had to take their dogs away because they were getting more traumatised then they would on a firework night.
“The event on Saturday night was nowhere near as bad as the previous one because there was a very visible police presence at this one but we just don’t want them coming back again and getting up to the old tricks.
“At the event earlier this year they were using Rannoch Road as a time trial circuit and timing themselves but there were no safety protocols in place - so it was an accident waiting to happen.”
The Birkenshaw event is one of many in the growing scene, that has led to big car parks being taken over in places like Hamilton, Strathclyde Park and the Chatelherault Park recently.
Labour MSP Mark Griffin has hit out at the “drag racing” events. In a letter to local businesses, he writes: “As you will know, the area has become a magnet for unlicensed ‘car meet-ups’ and drag racing.
“It is simply unacceptable that a solution has not yet been found to prohibit them from taking place on wholly unsuitable sites, which Birkenshaw Trading Estate most definitely is.”
Local councillor Helen Loughran has been pleading for months for North Lanarkshire Council and Police Scotland to take action to keep the event out of Birkenshaw, near Uddingston.
She said: “This event has been a blight on the local community and something that people have come to dread. It is set up to be a Fast and Furious event and that’s totally unacceptable for a quiet residential area.”
Ahead of Saturday’s event, organiser William Reid pleaded with attendees on Facebook not to break the law, stressing it should be a “static event”.
He later posted on Facebook: “Can’t thank everyone enough who came along yesterday to this meet, specially with the problems we had surrounding the event.
“We had the locals from the houses down wanting to pick on something to throw the book at us with msp /police and we proved them all wrong that it wasn’t our group that had caused problems down here.”
A police spokesperson said: “As with all events, we work closely with all our local partners to ensure an appropriate policing plan is in place.”
Fast and Furious 9 was partly filmed in Edinburgh and star Vin Diesel delighted crowds by singing Flower Of Scotland on the Royal Mile.
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