Shoppers stranded as snow hits Shropshire

Calls were today made for an investigation into how thousands of motorists were left stranded in their vehicles after heavy snow caused chaos at a retail park in Telford.

Furious motorists blamed Tesco staff for continuing to let cars on to the car park at the Wrekin Retail Park on Saturday afternoon even though it was already gridlocked.

One shopper, Jan Minihane, 37, of Shawbirch, Telford, who was caught up in the chaos, today said Tesco needed to learn from its mistakes.

She added: "They need to make sure this never happens again. Even if there is no formal investigation I think there needs to be a sit-down with all the affected parties, even including representatives from organisations such as the fire and ambulance services.

"If there had been a fire on the retail park or someone suffered a heart attack we could have had a tragedy."

The chaos came after up to six inches of snow fell in parts of the county in just a couple of hours.

Several people were taken to hospital as emergency services battled against the snow, which was particularly bad in Telford, Bridgnorth and parts of south Shropshire.

Treacherous driving conditions caused a string of accidents on the M54 with the Highways Agency forced to close the entry sliproad at Junction Two, Wolverhampton Business Park, and the westbound carriageway between Junction Two and Junction Three at Albrighton due to crashes.

The closures caused major delays back to Junction One at Cannock.

A spokeswoman for the Highways Agency said: "We had a few minor incidents around the same time so we decided to close the road and it was not reopened until 5.45pm. During that time we resolved the incidents and treated the road. The estimated time added to journeys was about 20 minutes."

Three people including a baby were taken to hospital following a three-car smash in Uppington, near Wellington, just before 1.50pm on Saturday.

A female passenger in one of a cars – a Suzuki – had to be cut out and was taken to hospital, along with a male driver and the baby, who were in the same car.

The Suzuki had collided with a Fiat and the female driver of that car suffered back injuries and was taken to hospital. The occupants in the third car, a Nissan Qashqai, were uninjured.

Darren Smith, watch manager at Telford Central Fire Station, said: "Due to the conditions we closed the road straight away and traffic was diverted."

A car crashed on the A49 at All Stretton, near Church Stretton, at about 3.40pm on Saturday which was attended by crews.

Ambulance spokesman Steve Parry said that particularly notable was the number of crashes which spiked from midday on Saturday until 10pm.

The ambulance service attended more than 35 incidents across the region during this period.

Three separate collisions took place on the M54 during Saturday afternoon creating road chaos between junctions three and four.

Craig Cooke, WMAS Assistant Chief Ambulance Officer, said: "The reports we have suggest that, while demand overall did not increase significantly, the poor weather experienced in some areas of the region did making driving conditions extremely difficult."

See also:

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