A lavish party hosted by BT at Alton Towers has prompted angry complaints from traders and caused miles of traffic queues.

More than £1m was spent on the party for 25,000 employees and guests at the Staffordshire theme park on Saturday.

The area was coned off by police in preparation for the event which closed the park to the public.

The cones were removed just after midday after businesses in the area complained they were losing trade.

Alton's village sub-postmaster Barry Burton said they received no warning that the area would be coned off and described the move as "unfair."

Traffic was slow moving along the A50 towards Uttoxeter throughout Saturday morning and traffic police had to deal with miles of queues.

Sergeant Chris Dawson, from Cheadle Police, said lessons had been learnt.

"It's very difficult in hindsight, but there may be slight improvements that could be made in the future.

"But at the end of the day there are a large amount of people and traffic converging on a relatively small area and I don't think there is going to be an answer that keeps everybody happy.

"But we will be looking into it to see if we can improve the situation in the future."

The event was organised to celebrate the contribution of staff who joined more than 30 years ago when what is now BT was a department of the Post Office.

Gruß,

Tim
...Scheize, der!