Noise monitors installed in crack down on anti-social driving near Surrey beauty spots

Police are installing noise monitors around the A24 to crack down on deafening exhausts tormenting Mole Valley residents.

Box Hill and Newlands Corner have become hotbeds of anti-social driving, with residents fed up of noisy cars and motorbikes destroying the beauty spots’ tranquillity.

Easing lockdown restrictions has led to an increase in speeding and made the problem worse.

Grace Sheppard, who works at Ryka’s Café, said she had heard Mickleham residents complain bikers now go through the village to avoid the average speed cameras installed on the A24 two years ago.

Hazel Watson, Surrey County Councillor for Dorking Hills, said: “There is a significant problem of cars and motorbikes with excessively noisy exhausts causing concern to many local residents.

“This is something affecting a large part of the district, I’ve heard from Abinger Hammer, Wotton, Westcott and Dorking, and other councillors around my area have told me they’ve had similar complaints.”

Police will put in monitors in a few weeks to detect when a vehicle breaks the legal noise limit.

They seized four vehicles in an anti-social driving operation targeting the Box Hill area last month.

Officers did stop checks on more than 300 vehicles and issued 96 traffic offence reports, fixed penalty notices or prohibition orders, along with a further 22 warnings.

Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner David Munro said: “Unfortunately there are a minority of people who have been causing misery for local residents with the manner of their driving which cannot be tolerated and this action has helped deter and disrupt that behaviour.”

Chief Inspector Michael Hodder, of the Surrey and Sussex Roads Policing Unit, said the Roads Policing Unit and local officers were continuing to monitor the situation.

He said: “We hope that local residents start to see a reduction in the anti-social and dangerous driving they’ve been experiencing and reporting to us.”