Traffic chaos is plaguing a Telford retail park where shoppers have been forced to queue for nearly an hour to leave the car park, it was claimed today. Craig Davies, duty manager of Sainsbury’s on the Forge Retail Park, said there was a problem with congestion in the car park, especially at weekends.
He said the store had contacted the owners, a company called The Junction, to ask if any action could be taken to alleviate the problem.
Bosses from The Junction said today they were aware the car park was very busy and were working to find a solution.
Mr Davies made his comments after a shopper said she had been forced to queue for almost an hour to leave the car park on Saturday.
The woman, who did not want to be named, said she had had to queue to get into a space and then to get out of the car park.
“Traffic was queueing nose to tail and there was no way of breaking out of the line of traffic into the parking bays, although there were spaces available,” she said.
“I went out half an hour later and it was exactly the same, choc-a-bloc. I couldn’t even get my trolley back because of all the cars and had to manoeuvre through flower beds.”
Mr Davies said gridlock was being caused by the sheer number of shoppers visiting the retail park, where Tesco has recently opened a Homeplus store.
“We’ve had customers and staff on the car park for more than an hour, not just Sainsbury’s shoppers but other shoppers on the retail park,” he said. “It’s been progressively worse in terms of congestion since Tesco came on to the retail park.”
Peter Collinson, head of operations at The Junction, said: “From the outset of the park we have employed 24/7 car park monitors to help with security and in October 2005 we contracted a specialist car park management company to act as car park masters, controlling traffic flow and managing security.
“We have also introduced parking restriction times, which has discouraged fly parkers using the car park to shop in Telford and successfully freed up spaces for people using our stores.”
By Becky Parkinson
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