Florence gig-goers frustrated by major traffic snarl up

Tonight the Westpoint Arena, on the outskirts of Exeter, paid host to hugely successful indie-rock band Florence and the Machine, writes Flo Eggins.

Nearly 8,000 people made their way to the arena to watch arguably the most high-profile music act to perform in Exeter for many years. Tickets for the event had sold out virtually straight away when the concert was announced in September, demonstrating the popularity of the band.

Unfortunately, the fantastic performance of Florence Welch and her band was marred for many by severe problems with traffic getting to and from Westpoint Arena. Traffic built up before the concert, with problems being reported between Sandy Gate roundabout and Clyst St Mary.

This is not unusual for events at Westpoint, with similar issues experienced at other large events such as the annual Fireworks Display and Devon County Show.

However, once the show had finished traffic issues became worse, with delays of over two hours being widely reported. One concert attendee observed: “Cars were queuing at a standstill in every direction out of each car park, with little control being demonstrated by the wardens.

To make matters worse, once traffic reached the exit of Westpoint, a traffic light system was in place which seemed to only stop traffic flowing.”

With prior knowledge of large events held at Westpoint, it seems strange that park and ride systems from across the city centre were not put in place to help ease the congestion. Also, there was little or nothing in local media to encourage people to car share or utilise other public transport available.

The attendee continued, “Next time I come to an event at Westpoint, I will think twice about driving here. There must be a better way for traffic to be controlled there.”

In a statement on its facebook page, the venue's managemnt said: "Westpoint would like to offer our apologies for the delay in exiting the site after the Florence and the Machine concert. There were a number of factors that occurred that, combined, made exiting a very long process.

"To explain - the recent wet weather meant that we endeavoured to park as many cars on hard standing as possible. There were a higher number of single occupancy vehicles than normal for this type of event. This coupled with the first point meant that our traffic marshals tightly parked as many vehicles on hard standing as they could.

"On exiting the site some vehicles that did get parked on grass had to be pushed or towed out, therefore taking some traffic marshals away from their posts.

"It became clear, once all cars were on site, that because we had to park cars tightly together, it was going to take longer then normal to exit them

"The factors above mean that it took up to two hours to exit the 2,680 cars from site. This is not the norm and all parties concerned are now working together to ensure we reduce the chance of this happening again."