Sat nav sends guests round bend

Guests bound for a Shropshire hotel are getting their stays off to a frustrating start by being sent the wrong way by sat navs, it was claimed today.

People looking forward to unwinding at Hadley Park House in Telford are instead getting wound up by being directed to a spot half a mile from the hotel.

The would-be guests are left mystified as to where the hotel entrance is.

And delivery drivers are also left scratching their heads as they are sent onto Silkin Way in Leegomery.

Hotelier Mark Lewis said: "It is a real problem.

"We get five or six calls every day from lost guests and suppliers who have been sent the wrong way by their sat navs."

The hotel's postcode directs drivers to Hadley Park Road and they then have to find their way back down the A442 to Hadley Park island before taking the exit down a short unnamed road leading to the hotel.

Mark's wife Geraldine, who has run the business with him since 2003, said: "We are not losing trade but it is frustrating.

"There again, we hear from some people who have lived in Telford all their lives and they say they did not know there was a hotel here.

"The problem is the hotel was formerly a farm which had a gatehouse on Hadley Park Road and that is where most sat navs are sending people.

"Some modern sat navs are okay but if other people ring up and ask us for our postcode to navigate we give them the address of the nearby Denso factory and then direct them from there."

A survey by breakdown service Autonational Rescue revealed that the majority of young drivers now relied on sat navs to reach their destinations but four per cent of them said the gadgets were often unreliable.

Eleven per cent said sat navs frequently took them on a long-winded route.

People from villages near Oswestry have reported being worried about huge lorries thundering along Shrophire's narrow lanes after being directed by sat navs.

A postcode mix-up was, meanwhile, thought to be to blame for directing lorries down narrow lanes.

Drivers were sent through Wistanstow, Craven Arms, instead of to The Grove industrial estate.