Residents in South Queensferry tell how boy racers are making their lives a misery and damaging the town's reputation

Locals described how up to 100 people with cars and motorbikes regularly assemble at the Hawes car park on the promenade, revving their engines, backfiring, intimidating and abusing passers-by, and then go on a circuit of the town, continuing the disruption until 3 or 4am.

The problem has become so bad that residents are leaving the town, hotel guests want to switch rooms in the middle of the night and locals are sleeping in their bathrooms to escape the racket.

The Hawes car park is a hub for the anti-social activity | Google

A petition to the council's transport and environment committee from local people called for the Hawes car park to be closed between 10pm and 6am every night, with robust barriers to make it inaccessible to vehicles during that time.

They also urged traffic calming measures, such as speed cushions and other alterations to inhibit speeding and excessive vehicle noise on Hawes Promenade, Hawes Brae, Station Road, Scotstoun Avenue, Queensferry High Street, the B800, Burnshot Road, Ferrymuir Gait, the Springfields, the A904 and the B925.

And they argued for more and better CCTV cameras, speed cameras and noise monitoring cameras to monitor and penalise anti-social behaviour.

One of the petitioners Andy Scott said Queensferry residents had endured “years of anguish and torment”. He played the committee a snatch of the deafening noise from the Hawes car park which he had recorded.

He said: "The whole car park is full most nights - the vast majority is kids and older people with their cars and up to 10 or 12 bikes - there can be up to 100 people there. It can start from about 6pm and go on till about 3 or 4am.

"They just do it for fun, they don't care about the residents. The car park is left in a mess every day. They've even got deck chairs now where they sit and hold court. The whole thing is very distressing.

"This is not just a back street, this is a World Heritage Site, people come from all around the world to see this place and they're being intimidated."

And he said speed tables which had been installed at the Hawes car park might have made it more difficult for cars to race around the area, but it had attracted more motorbikes. "The bikes have now started relishing the tables - it's like a rallycross to them - and they're even louder than the cars."

He said the police appeared to have little impact. "What happens when the police arrive is that you've never seen better behaved people in your life. Then as soon as the police car goes they'll start again and often it's louder because they've been kept back for a while."

The other petitioner, Anne Purcell, said the problem had had an enormous impact throughout the town. "It's not just the people who live near the Hawes car park, which is the hub, it's people throughout the whole town. We've had stories of people who can't get to sleep, they're woken in the morning, they're sleeping in the bathroom because there's nowhere else that's quiet enough.

"People have changed the routes they walk their dog, changed the way they walk home from the Hawes Inn. People have moved house. I used to eat my fish and chips on the pier, I don't do that any more. I brought my sea cadets to the lifeboat station - they were intimidated, they were verbally abused. People are abused walking along the street, businesses are impacted."

She said the Hawes Inn had been badly affected. "Residents ask to move rooms, ask for their money back, say they're cutting their stay short and they won't be back.

"It's having a huge impact on residents, visitors, and it's causing reputational damage to Queensferry and this iconic location and World Heritage Site."

Lib Dem councillor Kevin Lang, whose Almond ward includes Queensferry, said he believed the police could be doing more to tackle the problem

"The situation in the town is awful and it's getting worse. Yes, there is a hub of activity at the Hawes but this is not something that is isolated just to the promenade and the front. We have a circuit that runs around the town and people are coming every night on a loop and it's getting worse."

Queensferry, with the Forth bridges, was a jewel in the crown not just for Edinburgh but for Scotland. "It should be a community that we're incredibly proud of, but the reality is a relatively small number of people are causing misery for the people who call this place home."

The committee asked officials to report on what practical options the council could take to address effectively the issues raised in the petition.