Residents of a central Minehead street have complained that police did nothing to disperse drunken and drug-fuelled youths who were making a noise in the street and kept them awake all night.

The incident occurred in Friday Street and Wellington Square, Minehead, late on a Saturday night and lasted well into the early hours of Sunday morning, more than four hours in total.

Danielle Prosser, a Friday Street resident and former Minehead town councillor, said: “It was horrendous and there was no sign of it stopping.

“We’ve been having a lot of trouble with antisocial behaviour and it’s been getting progressively worse, but this was the last straw.”

Danielle Prosser, who lives with her husband, 12-year-old daughter and 70-year-old mother, says she ‘spent the night phoning the police’ trying to get help. There was loud music in the street and shouting.

At eleven minutes past one in the morning she says a fight broke out and after calling 999 the police said they were sending officers to the scene. When she called again at 2am, the police said someone was on their way. But she says that when they eventually did arrive they refused to get out of their car.

She said: “I stood in the road and waved them down and said are you not going to stop this? and they said, ‘no we can’t’.”

Danielle says, as well as the loud music and fighting, the youths, who she believes are locals and not holidaymakers, urinated against the Church wall, kicked flower beds, and vandalised a council sign. She says she also saw them ‘snorting cocaine’ and later found evidence of their drug-taking.

When she made a formal complaint, Danielle says she was told the police couldn’t do anything because loud music on a street is controlled by the Council. They also said they hadn’t seen any illegal behaviour when they were at the scene.

She also claims she was told that police didn’t intervene because they ‘didn’t have any backup’.

Danielle added: “Antisocial behaviour in the town is getting massively out of control. It’s making Minehead a dangerous place to be.”

Minehead Police station is operating short hours, with Williton the next closest station.

Danielle said: “I had to close the business early because I was that tired and I was violently, physically sick, it’s still catching up with us.”

Deputy Mayor of Minehead Toni Bloomfield called the reaction from the police ‘rather disappointing’ and said she would be taking the matter up with the Police and Crime Commissioner.

She said: “The lack of police is shocking; the worst thing is they’ve put the council tax up, promised us more police and we just don’t get it.”