Car park 'chaos' at York Designer Outlet as shoppers arrive for Winter Wonderland and Black Friday sales

Shoppers have reported people 'fighting over parking spaces' at York Designer Outlet today.
The Winter Wonderland ice rink at York Designer OutletThe Winter Wonderland ice rink at York Designer Outlet
The Winter Wonderland ice rink at York Designer Outlet

Huge numbers of visitors have descended on the McArthur Glen retail centre on the outskirts of York for a Winter Wonderland event and the Black Friday sales.

One woman said that cars were parked all over grass verges and even on roundabouts near the outlet village, which is also one of York's park and ride sites with buses serving the city centre.

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Four people arrested as man dies in Sheffield house fireWhile shopper Mark Vause posted on Facebook to say:

"Don’t go to York Designer Outlet, it’s traffic chaos - people fighting over car parking spaces and cars just dumped all over the roadside."

McArthur Glen had been promoting the Black Friday sales on their official Facebook page and were forced to respond to messages from angry customers.

Jamie Henderson commented:

"Shame your car park is absolutely ridiculous today. I appreciate it's Black Friday but there is no excuse for people to park illegally and make the car park unsafe for everyone else. Parking on pavements, abandoning cars in random areas of the car park. This was at 10:30am. I decided to shop elsewhere."

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"We do apologise for your parking experience today. We do have car park attendants out helping people find spaces but unfortunately, some guests have parked on the grass verges. We are working with our guests to keep the car park safe and we do apologise again."

Local bus operators Arriva and Coastliner also Tweeted to confirm their services were experiencing delays because of heavy traffic in the Fulford area, close to the A64 and the designer outlet.

Arriva said:-

"Due to major Traffic problems in York and the shopping outlet the 415/42 services are running up to one hour late we are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause."

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The Winter Wonderland launched on November 16 with the north of England's largest ice rink, a vintage fairground, an apres-skate cafe and a 30ft Christmas tree.

McArthur Glen also advised customers on Twitter that their Cheshire Oaks outlet was also experiencing heavy traffic problems for a concurrent Black Friday event, leading to a traffic management plan being implemented.

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