Loud bangs heard well into the early hours of the morning in Rhyl this week were just the usual gunfire, police have reassured angry residents.

The sounds, which have been echoing across the town since the weekend, have frustrated many locals, many of whom believed the noises to be wayward youths with supermarket fireworks.

PC Darren Briggs of North Wales Police said: “To all the residents of Rhyl concerned by the loud and disruptive bangs over the last few nights, rest assured that it was merely a couple of gang related incidents and a robbery at an off licence, and not naughty kids with fireworks”.

PC Briggs added: “A similar incident occurred last year when worried residents were calling 999 reporting illegal bonfires all over the town, but they just turned out to be standard arson attacks”.