Teesside Airshow traffic bosses knew it could take up to FOUR HOURS to get vehicles into the car park and had just five traffic stewards to deal with up to 7,500 cars.

The shocking revelations have come as a hotly anticipated report into the traffic shambles at the June 11 Teesside airshow has been published.

The report, written by Teesside Airport boss Phil Forster, revealed that just five traffic management staff were working at the event, fewer than half the number needed according to planning documents.

Event plans from before the airshow suggested that 12 staff were needed to man the car parks alone, but there were just five staff working on the day.

Read more: Teesside Airshow 'unlikely to happen again' after damning report

Those that were working have been slammed in the report as ‘reactive, rather than proactive’ and were seemingly ‘unprepared for the traffic volumes’.

Some members of the public said that traffic management staff sat in their vehicles rather than actively trying to manage the traffic.

The report also alleges that traffic management company Hatton Traffic Management Ltd was aware that it could take up to four hours to process all the cars wanting to enter the car park if everyone arrived within a short space of time, based on the number of vehicle bookings.

Read more: Teesside Airshow: How to get a refund after traffic chaos

According to the report this was raised at a traffic meeting, but the airport and other key bodies were not made aware of this information. It also says that Hatton was not invited or made aware of a full meeting of the organisers on March 9.

Many visitors were stranded in vehicles on roads surrounding the airport as the displays they had paid to watch happened above their heads.

Some holidaymakers flying from the airport also missed flights as the traffic became so bad they were unable to reach the terminal.

Read more: Teesside Airshow: Read the damning report in full

Organisers are now offering refunds to anyone who paid for a ticket but did not make it into the event because of the traffic.

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