THE Great Yorkshire Show looks to have received record number of visitors on day two of the show, after nearly 3,000 extra vehicles were parked on the showground.

Operations director for the show, Nigel Morgan, says they parked a staggering 20,000 vehicles at Harrogate Showground on Wednesday, compared with more than 17,000 on the second day of the show last year.

Parking figures also revealed the wet weather and cloudy skies on the opening day of the show only had a minimal impact on attendance, with 400 fewer cars than the first day of the show last year.

Mr Morgan put the significant rise in attendance down to the show’s popularity and wide profile.

“I think the show is extremely well known. People know they have an extremely good day out and a lot of people put it in their diary,” he said.

The influx led to even longer queues on roads leading to Harrogate than usual. As well as thousands of motorists on the roads leading into Harrogate, two vehicles collided on the A658 at 8.30am in the morning, near the Thistle Hill turn off for Knaresborough, blocking one carriageway and causing additional delays until it was cleared an hour later.

Mr Morgan said: “It’s always difficult for people sat in a car for a long period of time. We started using social media to put out messages on Facebook and Twitter asking people to be patient.

“We understood their frustration and were in regular contact with car parking contractors asking them for updates and explaining the information we were getting from social media.

“On a normal Wednesday people are parked by 11.30am, today it was 1pm; it’s taken an extra one and a half hours to get these extra 3,000 vehicles on the showground.”