Boy racers with a lot of speed are causing chaos in the two car parks of Gortin Glen Forest Park. It has been suggested that if their anti-social behaviour remains uncontrolled, it may eventually result in a tragedy. On Friday night, residents were notified of a group of people in the parking lots, which are around seven miles from Omagh. Despite the flow plates being in place, they were still able to enter. It is understood that these metal traffic control devices—which are meant to bar entry—were unscrewed, taken out and replaced with a plywood sheet to let automobiles through.

A local, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed that tires tracks were left all over the nearby parking lots and that they were completely destroyed. “It’s a horrible sight and a bad promotion for the main tourist destination in Tyrone. Little boys appeared with a van filled with tyre removal equipment (compression equipment). To enable them to swing about the parking lot, they jack up their automobiles and swap out the good tires for the old ones. Since each flow plate had at least eight bolts, they had everything planned out perfectly.”

Similar events used to take place here, but the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council’s attempts to put an end to them were only temporarily successful. The people claim that neither the police nor the council seem to be able to stop these kinds of occurrences anymore.

“There seems to be some misunderstanding about who should handle these occurrences between the police and the council. “The police tell us the council has to deal with it because it’s on their property, yet on the one hand the council doesn’t have any CCTV or alarms placed to deter intruders from using the parking lot.