Arabian nights in Knightsbridge spark residents' fury (Feature)

By Anna Tomforde Aug 20, 2010, 3:06 GMT

London - When night falls, the fashionable streets of Knightsbridge echo to the roar of luxury sports cars and the blare of Arabic music, making residents feel more like 'being in Dubai' than in one of London's most upmarket residential districts.

This summer, wealthy Middle Eastern visitors who fly in their Bugattis, Ferraris and Lamborghini's in private jets for ear- splitting races along boutique-lined streets and leafy squares, have aroused the anger of residents and attracted the attention of the police.

'It's like having the starting grid to Le Mans right outside your bedroom window,' said Bruce Beringer, co-founder of a residents' campaign group to stop the noise from sleep-depriving supercars.

'Rolls Royces don't make a noise, but supercars do,' Beringer said in an interview with the German Press Agency dpa.

'We are not racist. Visitors from the Gulf States are very welcome and London has always been a city that welcomes foreigners,' he said.

'But this area is fast becoming an unpleasant place to live,' he added. Weeks of noise and sleepless nights from revving car engines had driven residents to despair. Locally, the races have become known as 'cruising parties.'

In early August, police arrested two Arab men after a supercar spun out of control, crashing into four parked vehicles in a usually quiet residential square.

The two men, from the United Arab Emirates, are due to appear in court in October, charged with dangerous driving and driving without insurance.

The problem faced by residents is made worse by rickshaws, which transport Middle Eastern visitors past the shop windows of Gucci, Prada and Armani well into the early hours, with Arabic music blaring from loudspeakers.

The unlicensed rickshaws, at times riding three abreast, pose a problem for cars and London buses trying to squeeze by, and force pedestrians to 'duck and dive,' according to the campaign group.

'One day there will be a fatality, there is an accident waiting to happen,' Karen Morgan Thomas, co-founder of the citizens' campaign group, told dpa.

'They are not drunk but they are bored,' says Morgan Thomas of the rickshaw passengers, who are often girls flirting with men in long Arabic robes strolling down Sloane Street, one of London's most exclusive shopping streets.

'Walking down Sloane Street at night is like being in Dubai or Marrakesh,' she observed.

Top hotels in the district had changed their working hours for chambermaids to accommodate the visitors' late sleeping habits, said Morgan Thomas.

Pickpockets and beggars had also flocked to the area. According to Morgan Thomas, some of the European beggars donned Arabic dress to attract sympathy. She had herself seen an 'Arab kid' giving a beggar a 50-pound (78-dollar) note.

Support for the residents' campaign has mushroomed.

Meanwhile, talks are under way with the local council and the police about the stricter enforcement of anti-noise environment legislation, speed limit-and parking fine rules. An increased police presence in the area is under discussion.

Hisham Alireza, a Saudi Arabian construction company owner who lives in the district, said he was 'appalled and embarrassed' by the behaviour of the young men in their fast cars.

'We want to see it stopped. The problem is that they come from very close societies where the men and women are not allowed to mix. So when they come to London in the summer, they go wild. It is a sort of courting ritual,' Alireza told the Daily Telegraph.

The campaign group has also been in talks with representatives of the Qatari royal family, the new owners of Harrods, the luxury department store nearby that attracts a large amount of Middle Eastern customers.

'They have been very helpful,' said Morgan Thomas. 'Harrods' wants to be a good neighbour. But they have no ability to impose rules outside their front door.'