Christmas shoppers at Bluewater Shopping Centre in Kent became embroiled in a six-hour wait to get out of the popular shopping destination.
Huge bottlenecks were caused as the centre’s car parks struggled to deal with the massive amount of shoppers trying to exit the centre on Monday.
A break down did little to improve things, with police attending the scene to find motorists crying and arguing while sat in stationary cars.
Many motorists chose to leave their vehicles and return to the centre to eat or watch a film. This did little to quell frustrations, with abandoned cars making the problem even worse.
Amie Everest was caught up in the chaos, along with boyfriend Ian Varley. Everest told the Daily Mail: “The layout of the car park is poorly designed with only one lane used as an exit.
“When Bluewater staff realised there was a problem they blocked off many of the entrances to stop more traffic getting stuck.
“The simple thing would have been to let us all go down the entrance to get out, but they wouldn’t let us.
“Cars were bumper to bumper and at a standstill. I was shopping from 9am to 3pm and trying to get out from 4pm.”
Kim Elliot was another motorist unable to move: “I was waiting for over an hour before I went back into my parking space and went back to ask staff what was happening.
“They said nothing was wrong and it was just people leaving. It took more than three and a half hours for me to get out.”
