CUSTOMER power has forced a North Yorkshire superstore to perform a U-turn over a controversial pay and display parking scheme.

Safeway's store in Harrogate's Station Parade had installed a series of pay-to-park machines in its car park.

Customers were being charged £2 to park for two hours through the black box ticket machines. But the fee was refunded for shoppers spending £4 or more in the store.

But following protests from customers, the scheme has been dropped after two weeks.

Now the company has returned to a manned barrier parking control with customers showing a stamped store receipt on exit to secure free parking. A spokeswoman for Safeway said the scheme had been introduced on a trial basis following abuse by non-customers using the facilities for commuter and office parking.

"We introduced the new scheme for the benefit of our customers to ensure they had sufficient parking when they wanted to shop at the store," said the spokeswoman.

She said they had received "verbal and written" responses from customers unhappy with the change.

Store manager Rob Pender said: "We have the customer at the forefront of our minds when decisions affecting them are taken. We take customer feedback very seriously."