Hundreds turn up to car meet at Oxford Parkway station

But Thames Valley Police 'didn't have enough officers' to shut it down on Saturday night.

Residents took to Twitter to complain about the 'screeching tyres' and a noisy rally, explaining that the force had 'promised' to send crews down for hours on end, but ultimately they didn't have 'enough resources'.

At 9pm Eamonn Molloy said: "500+ people watching cars doing donuts and racing around in Oxford Parkway car park among commuters cars for 2.5 hrs now. Noise travelling all over Cutteslowe / Kidlington. No resource to deal with it apparently."

He gave an update, explaining: "It's getting busier. Called Thames Valley Police every hour and they promised they would send a patrol. Hasn't happened yet. They're busy with other priorities."

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@matthew_barber Oxford Parkway turned into a race track on Saturday night and no #TVP available to respond. Any idea why?

— David Poultney (@dpoultney) December 2, 2019

Called @TVP_Oxford several times this evening about an unauthorised car meet in Parkway Station. 3 hours of revving cars and dangerous driving. TVP say they don't have the resources/powers to deal with it, Transport police say they don't. Ditto environmental health..

— Ian Middleton (@IanMiddletonX) December 1, 2019

Cherwell district councillor Ian Middleton said he could hear the noise from two miles away, and said it was 'anarchy'.

He added in a tweet: "I appreciate the police are stretched on a Saturday night and under-resourced at the best of times, but this is ridiculous!"

Another Twitter user Nick Kerigan said: "I also called the police – it seems there is a 'lack of resource' to shut this dangerous and illegal gathering down. Not very reassuring if you live close by or are using Oxford Parkway Station."

Somebody else added: "Police are so under resourced have been unable to prevent up to 1000 people gathering at Oxford Parkway car park to watch illegal races around paying customer cars."

A Thames Valley Police spokesperson said:"Police received calls on Saturday (30/11) from around 6.50pm to reports of a car meet at Water Eaton Park and Ride car park/ Oxford Parkway on Banbury Road in Oxford.

"The force receives more than one million calls from the public every year. Each call is assessed and resources are sent to incidents depending on the threat, harm and risk.

"On this occasion officers were unable to attend due to significant other incidents elsewhere in the Thames Valley, but callers were given a telephone resolution."