DEMANDS by television bosses led to an international rugby double-header kicking off during peak rush hour traffic, it has been revealed.

More than 7,000 people attended The Northern Echo Arena, home of Darlington Mowden Park Rugby Club, to watch England under-20s and the World Champion women’s national team each take on their Scotland counterparts on Friday evening.

Although spectators at the match were largely full of praise for the organisation within the stadium, the combination of a large crowd trying to reach the 5.30pm kick-off, alongside commuters using one of the main routes out of Darlington, caused large tailbacks.

Some motorists reported sitting in queues of traffic snaking around Darlington for up to 40 minutes.

A number of people commenting on social media and on The Northern Echo website criticised the lack of police presence to manage the traffic when it was widely known that more than 5,000 tickets had been sold in advance.

Others questioned why council traffic wardens were not on hand to ticket those motorists who gave up and left their cars on verges and residential parking areas.

A representative from Mowden Park Rugby Club could not be contacted over the weekend.

However, on Friday Acting Inspector Gary O’Neill, of Darlington Police, said the force had no contingency plans to deal with the influx of traffic around the arena and could only urge people to avoid the area.

Darlington Borough Council leader Bill Dixon, who attended the games, said today (Sunday) he would be asking officials to look at whether more could have been done from the council’s point of view to avoid the disruption.

He suggested Durham Police might also want to consider whether it could have done more to manage the traffic, pointing out that officers had always been on hand when Darlington Football Club played at the arena, with much lower crowds.

Asked for his view on the disruption, Cllr Dixon said: “The big issue was the television coverage. Sky dictated that the women’s match must start at 7.30pm, which meant the under-20’s had to start at 5.30pm.

“I’m not sure there was much the council could have done, but I will be asking officers to review what happened and see if we could have done more.

“These games were fantastic for the town, but the reality is that these things come at a cost. In this case that was the 5.30pm kick-off, which is not good when it is Friday rush hour at the same time.

“This was a premier event for Darlington and meeting the demands of a national broadcaster is not a bad problem to have for our sports teams.”