SLEEPLESS residents appealed for their MP's help over late-night drivers using a car park as a noisy racetrack.

Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden is urging action to bar the hooligan-drivers from the Apollo 2000 car park in Talbot Road.

Edwina Toner, who lives opposite, said: "Sleep is impossible. The noise starts at about 9pm and goes on till 3am.

"You get about 10 cars all playing music at full volume and if you ask them to stop it only gets worse. When it's wet, they do hand-brake spins, or they line up opposite Talbot Road, taunting people to race them through the streets. Somebody's going to get killed."

Though the police react quickly, she said, the cars soon return.

Mr Marsden took up the residents' fight after they sent him a 50-name petition.

He wrote to the electrical store bosses: "I am concerned both about the noise nuisance and the threat to safety.

"Some form of barrier or gate is needed to prevent access at night."

But Apollo 2000 managing director David Broughall explained the car park is leased from United Norwest Co-op.

An attendant prevents misuse until Apollo closes at 8pm, but it is then used as an overspill car park by Mecca Bingo, which shuts at 11pm.

Mr Broughall said: "We'd be more than willing to contribute to the cost of preventive measures.

"There would need to be extra fencing and a barrier which could perhaps be locked by Mecca at night and opened by us in the morning."

A United Norwest Co-op spokesman said they only became aware of the complaints a few days ago, and were to have consultations with Mecca owners Top Rank.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.