A THORNTON woman has hit out at car park staff amid claims she was left stranded and vulnerable after a late night ghost walk.
Sam Gregory, had been attending the spooky tour at North Pier with two friends, Kae Beckett and Jennifer Barrow, and purposely parked at Blackpool Council's West Street car park because she knew it stayed open until 12.30am.
But to their horror wh
en the group returned at 12.20am the car park was already closed.
They called an emergency phone number outside the building, but there was no reply.
And with only £10 in their handbags between the three of them, they could not afford a taxi home.
Sam, 41, from Victoria Road East said: "When we got back and saw the shutters down, we were really horrified.
"Town was incredibly busy with drunks and people being sick and we saw some people being arrested which was really frightening.
"We waited near Rumours (nightclub) because we wanted to stay near the police but it really was horrendous, especially for Kae being heavily pregnant.
"There were some disabled people on the ghost walk with us.
"I can't imagine what they would have done in the same situation.
"The way we have been treated over this is disgusting and I hate the thought of this happening to anybody else. I cried my eyes out when I finally got home."
After failing to get help from the police, the trio were eventually picked up by Mrs Beckett's husband who had to wake their eight year-old daughter to drive up to Blackpool at 2am.
"Blackpool Council apologised, but couldn't offer us an explanation for why it closed early," Sam added.
A council spokeswoman said a duty officers mobile phone number had now been added to the car park's signage.
"Duty officers shut down the car park by closing the shutters at around 12.25am to allow them to patrol the building without anyone entering and to prevent anyone trying to park."
The full article contains 340 words and appears in Blackpool Gazette newspaper.
