THE duty manager of Sainsbury's Water Lane branch says he feels let down by the police for their lack of help in dealing with weekly "car cruises" at his store.

Every Saturday about 100 car enthusiasts gather at the supermarket's car park to show off their souped-up cars, and every first Sunday of the month, including last Sunday, the figure goes up to around 700. Last month 950 attended.

The boy racers compete against each other and perform wheel spins and burn-outs to the accompaniment of pounding music from their cars' sound systems.

Last Sunday there were even fireworks and a disco.

But Mike Donoghue, who plans to put up gates to keep the cruisers out, told The Herald the police say they cannot intervene because the cruises take place on private land.

"We feel let down by the police, that's why we're going to put gates up. It shouldn't have to come to this but we've realised they won't help us.

"They say it's on your car park, it's your problem."

Mr Donoghue said the store contacted the police as soon as Sunday's car cruise got going at about 5 pm, but "as usual they just sat there in a couple of patrol cars".

The car enthusiasts, whose exploits were being photographed by boy racer favourite Max Power magazine, eventually left at about 2 am.

Mr Donoghue said they came from as far afield as Bournemouth and Slough, and that even some of the store's own staff attended.

The store was closed, so there was no repeat performance of last December's disruption when 700 cars blocked the car park, barring entrance to shoppers and exit for staff.

But although the cruise passed off with little incident it still left its mark, said store manager David Laight.

"We had complaints from neighbours. There was a lot of noise and a burger van and they left tyre marks from doing wheelspins.

"They created an awful lot of mess in the car park and an army of staff with bin bags spent about 40 minutes clearing it all up first thing Monday morning."

Mr Laight said he is going to employ security guards to patrol the perimeter of the car park.

A spokeswoman for Surrey police said she thought the cruisers could have been part of a regular Guildford cruise whose members have been thwarted by barriers to the Ladymead Retail Park.

"It's a problem we are aware of. If they are turned away from Guildford, police there tell their colleagues in Farnham and Sainsbury's is made aware.

"In Guildford it's become such a regular occurrence that we can plan ahead for it and if the same thing started happening in Farnham we could do the same."

Asked what the police role should be, the spokeswoman said: "It they (Sainsbury's) want security they would have to provide that themselves, but if there are 700 cruisers it becomes an issue of public safety and the police would step in."