Two hours to exit Crayford Sainsbury’s car park this afternoon
A heads up to let people know that roadworks in Crayford are resulting in people being stuck for hours when trying to exit the car park.
Emergency Thames Water work at the one-way system is causing disruption.
In addition, roadworks in Bexleyheath are causing delays and to top it off Eastern Way in Thamesmead is shut for weeks causing long delays there particularly in peak periods.
The M25 has miles of tailbacks from Dartford to Swanley which is turn is causing miles of queues on the A2.
Basically, avoid much of Bexley borough in a car.
Today I found myself stuck in Crayford Sainsbury store car park for three x a half hours, it is true that there were road works x disrupted traffic in the local area but that had absolutely nothing to do with the problems that I faced in attempting to leave the stores property. The store lacked appropriate skills to respond to the problems within there own carpark x refused to take any personal responsibility. When I did finally manage to speak to the manager, who in fairness was very polite and very young. I had to suggest that she directed specific staff to keep customers well informed x to answer peoples questions, that the store should be giving bottles of water to people stuck in cars apologising for the difficulties x answering peoples questions, I had to tell her that the grid lock was a serious issue because if an incident tock place emergency services would not be able to resolve the problem. Her response, was that she could do nothing as staff were not insured outside of the store, even though the car park is Sainsbury store property, she blamed the local authority for allowing road works upon the public high way which were at some distance from the store for impacting upon the function of the Sainsbury carpark, she appeared to lack initiative or that she was not being empowered by the higher management to resolve the difficulties, but I reilliterate ….the problems of leaving the car park were not down to issues outside of the carpark because once I drove onto the public roads I had no problems, I did see some traffic que but nothing compared to my experience at Sainsbury’s Even though there was an unbelievable grid lock situation within the car park x people could not leave the car park, cars were still comming into the car park, the manager said she did not have the authority to stop people comming into the car park, it apeared she had little authority to attempt to resolve the problems of the grid lock traffic. The Store was I’ll equipped to deal with the issue constructively or to provide good coustomer care… the whole situation was utterly shocking I have never ever experienced anything like it at any store I have ever visited … to add insult to injury I had to return some of my food I had bought because it could not stay in my car for three and a half hours…. I am a very disgruntled customer
Every April we get this traffic chaos as Councils use up their remaining budget on road works. Eastern Way is a joke, why on earth has all the carriageway been shut when it’s just the central barriers being repaired. Someone should be made to answer. The whole are is becoming a no drive area. No wonder so many shop online these days.
In fairness, Horizon Parking run the car park, not Sainsbury’s. This is usually the case with these retail parks. Shops are shops, not car park operators. If they do own the land (not usual) they contract the parking out.