FRUSTRATED shoppers were blocked in for hours when the car park at Sainsbury’s in Wrexham became gridlocked with traffic yesterday.

One woman who went shopping there with her sister was unable to move her car for more than three hours and has vowed never to shop at the store again.

A spokeswoman for Sainsbury’s blamed a combination of volume of traffic, the weather and the sequencing of the lights on the nearby main road.

Margaret Hall, 54, and her 52-year-old sister Lynn Griffiths, both of Brymbo, were doing some pre-Christmas shopping and left the checkouts at 11.44am.

But Margaret says they were only able to leave the car park at 2.50pm.

Lynn said: “I’ve never seen anything like it before.

“They were letting cars in but the ones already there just couldn’t get out.

“They had wardens directing traffic, which didn’t seem to help much.

“The cars were queuing in all the aisles and I couldn’t even reverse out.”

Margaret said: “We eventually got out of the car park at 2.50pm and I got back home at 3.15pm after leaving to go shopping at 11.15am.

“I suffer from a breathing problem and I was getting a bit panicky about being trapped in the car park.

“The whole thing was a nightmare and I won’t be shopping there again.”

On the car park, Barbara Roberts of Chirk told the Leader at about 2pm she had been in the queue to leave for about half an hour.

She said: “Nobody is letting you out and I can’t see any reason for the hold up.”

Motorist Walter Redfern, of Yale Park, added: “I’ve just come in for a few essentials and I don’t know when I’ll be able to get out.”

A spokeswoman for Sainsbury’s said: “This is a common problem on that car park.

“What happened was a combination of volume of traffic and the weather but mainly the sequencing of the lights at Plas Coch.

“The road simply is not wide enough there but we are involved in plans to widen it.

“We had five attendants and two departmental managers from the store doing their best to guide customers.

“We also had signs up advising people to use alternative ways in and out of the store.”