Letter: Sympathy with Tesco staff after gridlock in the snow

Once again Telford traffic ground to a standstill with some roads gridlocked, all because of a bit of snow. This was compounded by the stupidity of some drivers.

What started out for us as a quick visit to Tesco on Saturday, at about 1pm, turned into an endurance test of patience, temper and bladder control which lasted more than four hours.

Numerous customers questioned the ability of Tesco staff and management to assist with the problem.

However, no amount of shouting, bawling and on occasion violence towards staff helped the problem.

Despite the lack of information, Tesco did offer free hot drinks and the use of telephones and toilets for those of us who found ourselves in a desperate situation.

As it turned out, the problem was the fault of the inconsiderate drivers causing the Ketley Brook roundabout to become totally gridlocked. Red lights on roundabouts usually mean you are required to stop even when it's snowing.

Once we had managed to extract ourselves from Tesco's car park we were confronted by the mayhem on the roundabout. Drivers were ignoring the traffic lights and going across on red, only to find their way had been blocked by similar idiots. This was further compounded by broken down vehicles heading towards the M54 at junction 6.

Listening to Shropshire Radio, people were complaining about the lack of gritting. We, however, from our encampment on the car park saw several gritting lorries heading towards Ketley Brook which were then caught up in the mayhem and unable to treat the surfaces.

We appreciate the police were otherwise engaged with more serious problems on the M54 but the despatch of community support officers to try to regulate the flow of traffic on and off the car parks and at the island would possibly have helped.

My sympathies go out to the Tesco staff who were berated and abused but managed to keep their cool.

Tracey Downes

Apley

See also:

• Trapped! Shoppers stuck on car park for hours in snow

• Shoppers stranded as snow hits Shropshire

• Big freeze keeps grip on Shropshire for rest of week