THE co-organisers of Teesside Airshow have issued a statement regarding refunds for those who did not make it to the airport due to the gridlocked traffic.

Chris Petty and Steve Davies, co-organisers of Sky Live Air, said: “We apologise to every single person that was affected by the delays in getting to yesterday’s airshow.

“We employed a professional traffic management company, have held numerous meetings over many months with Stockton and Darlington Councils, the Safety Advisory Group, and the Police. The traffic management plan in place was fully signed off by everyone.

“Clearly something went wrong yesterday and we will fully investigate to make sure this doesn’t happen again. We are looking in to how to give refunds to those who didn’t attend the show because of the delays.”

Read more: Apology given after Teesside Airshow branded 'shambles' as families stuck in three hour queues

Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen, appeared on BBC Look North last night and said: “Putting on an event where you've got 22,000 tickets sold, and that doesn't include children so we're expecting 25,000 people here today and that comes with its own headaches and some of the traffic has been difficult to deal with but it looks like now people are getting into the airshow itself, everybody's having a good time and hopefully we can do this again in the future and we can improve it for next year as well.

Sunderland Airshow obviously didn't go ahead this year and I think we're, next to Blackpool, the only airshow in the North of England this year so obviously lots of enthusiasts coming from far and wide which is great for exposing what Teesside's all about and bringing people to the local area and that comes with it's own set of challenges as well so there'll be lots to learn for next year but actually I think it looks like people are having a good time.”

Chris Petty also appeared in the Look North report. He said: “We've heard there's been an accident on the A66, and that's something we can't put within our plan. We put a message out int he weeks before saying give yourself plenty of time to get here. It's a sell-out event. There's obviously going to be lots of people travelling. It's one of them things unfortunately and if we could change things and fly everybody in, we would.”

More to follow.

--

Keep up to date with all the latest news on our website, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

You can also follow our dedicated Teesside Facebook page for all the latest in the area by clicking here.

For all the top news updates from right across the region straight to your inbox, sign up to our newsletter here.

Have you got a story for us? Contact our newsdesk on newsdesk@nne.co.uk or contact 01325 505054