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Residents will have their say on whether to ban boy racers and nuisance drivers from Essex towns after "persistent complaints." Rochford District Council will hold a public consultation on the new public space protection order, which is set to ban racing, performing stunts, revving engines, using threatening or intimidating behaviour towards another person, and other antisocial behaviour. The council says there's been a "long history" of "significant antisocial behaviour."
The council's communities, wellbeing and housing committee discussed the plans on September 29. Various councillors backed the plans to ban the nuisance drivers and insisted it must be brought in "as quickly as practicably possible."
Danielle Belton, Conservative leader of the council, said: "I welcome seeing this report come forward, and as Councillor Lisa Newport said, it's really useful to see the data broken down that way. I know this is something Councillor James Newport was quite passionate about seeing go forward, certainly in the Downhall and Rawreth area, because we get persistent complaints at that end of the district. I welcome it coming forward and I'd like to see this happen sooner, rather than later and to councillor Lisa Newport's point, getting that consultation out as quickly as practicably possible would be very useful."
The key locations and hotspots for the boy racers are the A1245, Rawreth Lane, and London Road, Rayleigh, Cherry Orchard Way, and Hall Road, Rochford, according to the council. There are also concerns about "an increase" in motorbike activity in Watery Lane, Hullbridge Road, Rayleigh, which is being "used as a race circuit."
Adrian Eves, Rochford District Residents councillor for Hockley, said it's "useful" for residents to report the incidents to police. He said: "A bit of advice that I was given by the police, we should encourage our residents to report any incidents, although it may feel to them that nothing is being done, every time it's reported it goes as a statistic which goes towards this kind of list."