Christmas shoppers bring city to a halt
There were long queues around the city because of the large volume of traffic caused by the start of the Christmas Market and high profile football and rugby matches, as well as a crash and the failure of traffic lights.
Two areas that saw significant problems were Sainsbury's in Green Park and Charlotte Street car park, where motorists were ignoring the seasonal no right turn restriction.
A spokesman for Bath and North East Somerset Council said it would be working with the police to try to prevent congestion this weekend.
He said: "The prohibited turn into Charlotte Street car park was introduced to prevent vehicles waiting to turn right and forming queues which would block Queen Square.
"The council will ensure that the police are deployed there to deal with any drivers who do not follow the restrictions this weekend - their presence should stop people from turning into Charlotte Street.
"We will also liaise with the police to try to reduce queuing for Avon Street where this affects traffic congestion in the area.
"We will also review the situation to see if we can improve information on which car parks are available by use of our electronic variable messaging signs and ensure that, as usual, the public are advised when car parks are full."
At Sainsbury's shoppers queued for more than two hours to leave the car park.
Andy Russell, from Oldfield Park, said he had gone to the supermarket with his two young daughters at around 11.30am and it had taken him more than two hours to make the five-minute journey home.
He said: "It wasn't too bad getting there but when I returned to my car at around noon, the car park was the perfect definition of gridlock, with no one moving a millimetre.
"I sat in my car for at least 30 minutes before I could just get out of my parking spot – to cut a long story short it took me a little over two hours to get home."
Mr Russell added that he saw people arguing over parking space and was surprised that nobody came to blows because of the stress of the situation.
Robert Heath, who lectures at the University of Bath, had similar problems.
He said: "Shoppers' cars at Sainsbury's were trapped in the supermarket car park for more than two hours."
A spokesman for Sainsbury's said: "The problems last weekend were caused by the coming together of many, many different things.
"There was a failure of the traffic lights outside the car park and there was also a road traffic accident.
"It is very rare that these things happen and we are working to make sure it doesn't happen again, hopefully everything will run smoothly this weekend."
The council has funded four police officers to work with its staff to control weekend traffic in the build up to Christmas.
However, it says that in the long-term the only option to ease congestion is the expansion of the park-and-ride sites, as part of the controversial £57.5 million Bath Transportation Package.
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