Car parking troubles have best the multi-million pound Swedish mega-store

The Calcot store opened on Thursday, July 14 to thunderous applause but has twice had to shut its 1,179 carpark as frustrated shoppers become trapped for hours.

Just three days after opening staff were forced to hand out water bottles as cars were stationary for up to three hours.

Some frustrated motorists abandoned their cars to collect them later in the day.

Then, just 30 days later, the same thing happened again.

On Saturday the Swedish megastore had to close the carpark again as police were called the scene.

Frustrated motorists took to twitter slamming the store for the delays.

Daniel Croft wrote: "Stuck for hours in car park not moving anywhere. Major remedial measures required."

Whilst twitter user @a1kaladin wrote: "Had a three hours wait at Ikea Reading. My first ever visit. Not ideal but at least I wasn't on the third floor of the car park in the rain.

"Props to the staff for standing out in the rain and taking people's abuse. Not what they signed up for."

Charlotte Redman, a spokesman for Thames Valley Police, said: "We were contacted around 4pm about traffic congestion in the Ikea car park at Calcot.

"This is a car park issue and not a police matter.

"We understand the situation did ease around 7pm."

Ikea are investigating why the jams, which have clogged up the car park on five per cent of trading days, keep occurring.

Johanna Heuren, IKEA Reading Store Manager said: "We can confirm that the entrance of the car park at IKEA Reading closed for a short period this Saturday to allow customers to exit the store.

"Our traffic management team responded to keep cars moving as quickly as possible.

"We apologise for any inconvenience caused and for the delays to our customers."

When West Berkshire Borough Council approved the scheme they used a parking survey carried out at Ikea in Bristol to plan for peak usage.

Ikea have said they will not comment further whilst their investigation is ongoing.