Calls have been made for traffic marshals to be drafted in to deal with long queues of traffic at a drive-through coffee shop.
Lines of cars waiting for Costa coffee at Bridge of Don Retail Park are creating gridlock in the carpark, and local residents/councillors are calling for help to be brought in to control the queues.
“Costa have got to the stage now where they need to start spending the money and put a marshal in,” said Councillor John Reynolds.
“It’s their queue – it’s not the problem of the landowner.
“They’re the ones who need to do something about it.
“They need to put in a marshal in and make some changes.”
Long queues started forming at the branch last week when the chain launched an offer for 50p drinks.
The discounted coffees led to huge tailbacks on Denmore Road and Ellon Road, with a number of near-misses reportedly involving cars leaving the queues nearly being hit by fast-moving vehicles.
The situation was branded “very, very dangerous” by Mr Reynolds, who pushed for changes to be made in the layout of the carpark.
Owners of the carpark, Greenridges, agreed, and on Friday evening some changes were implemented on a trial basis.
However it seems these have not solved the problems, as the gridlock continues.
“Thanks to the changes, shoppers parked in the disabled spots outside retailers such as M&S and Home Bargains are now unable to get out,” said Mr Reynolds.
“There have been lots of complaints. One woman was there for 20 minutes, and another waited 40 minutes, which is ridiculous.”
In an attempt to relieve traffic, the wide single lane Costa customers used to queue in has now been turned into two lanes.
One is labelled for drive-through customers and the other is for access to the rest of the car park.
Queues often formed next to disabled parking spaces, but because it was a wide lane the drivers were able to squeeze out.
Now the space is extremely tight due to the changes, giving less space for cars trying to leave.
“People in the Costa queue just won’t let folk out,” Mr Reynolds said.
“I don’t understand it because they won’t lose their place, they’ve just got to keep back a little bit and let people out. It so self-centred on these people’s parts.”
An M&S spokeswoman said: “We are aware some customers had problems exiting our accessible parking spaces over the weekend and we are keen to resolve this.
“We are in regular contact with the car park owners and we are encouraged they are listening. We welcome further testing of new layouts.”
The discount coffee deal is now over but the chaos it created has brought the ongoing problems in this car park into focus.
“The general problem (of dangerous queues forming on the main road) has been resolved to a certain extent, and they’ve put in a pedestrian area so people feel safe to walk. But twice at the weekend, there were queues back onto Denmore Road again,” Mr Reynolds said.
“Costa’s footfall must be huge compared to when they first opened and there’s even more residential houses coming – there are another 99 houses planned on the B999 where you get to Sheilhill Road.
“And on the other side of the roundabout, the industrial estate is growing so there will be more building going on there over the next couple of years too.
“Costa is only going to be getting busier.”
In response, Costa say they are very concerned about the ongoing issues with the car park and want to see things improve for all the retail units there.
A Costa Coffee spokesperson said: “We continue to work with the management of the Bridge of Don Retail Park to support the introduction of new measures to help with local traffic flows.
“As part of our ongoing commitment to the local community, we will monitor this situation closely and work with the other retailers to identify solutions that work for all of our customers and visitors to the retail park.”
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