Drivers wait two hours to get out of car park
DRIVERS spent around two hours stuck in Cardiff’s busiest car park on Saturday.
But St David’s shopping centre has not been able to say if it plans to review arrangements in the wake of the huge delays.
On Saturday evening, drivers faced waits of more than two hours to get out of the car park.
Tailbacks reached to the top floors of the multi-storey car park.
Some decided to abandon their plans to leave and head back into the shopping centre to wait for the rush to die down.
Others were told by shopping centre staff to leave their cars overnight and return the next day.
They were told they would not be charged any extra as a result.
The shopping centre’s Twitter account told drivers that the delay was being caused by traffic lights outside the shopping centre which they do not control.
They were asked by the Echo if they was planning to review parking arrangements in light of the delays.
A spokeswoman was not able to say if any review would take place.
One customer, Lucy Rodriguez Corfield, said drivers were told by staff at the car park, which has more than 2,000 spaces, that the delays were just because it was “busy”.
But she said the car she was in with friends, which had been parked on the top level, had moved “100 yards in two hours”, and that drivers were getting “irate” at the delays.
“It took us 20 minutes just to join the queue and get out of our parking space,” said Lucy, who had driven from Pembrokeshire with friends to visit Cardiff.
“We asked the guards and they told us the delays were because it’s ‘just really busy.’
“People were abandoning their cars and going to get coffee while the delays were ongoing, and coming back to find their car is still in the same place.”
Lucy said after coming back to the car park to pay at just before 4.30pm, the group saw the queues and thought they would just “get in the car” as it did not initially look too bad.
She added: “It was very frustrating and people were getting angry.”
A spokeswoman for St David’s said: “We are sorry that shoppers encountered queues leaving the car park on Saturday. Traffic across the city centre during peak times impacts the flow of traffic that’s able to exit our car park.
“We work hard to ensure customers exit as quickly and safely as possible during these times and would like to thank everyone for their patience.
“St David’s honoured the tickets of customers that left their cars in the centre until the traffic died down and the priority for the centre was to ensure customers exited the car park as safely as possible.”