HUNDREDS of civil servants are angry after being banned by shopping centre managers from parking in prime spaces in front of their offices.

Benefits Agency workers at Durham House, Washington, are threatening to boycott the town's Galleries shopping centre after being told they have to park elsewhere in the complex during the day.

They say, at best, they will be inconvenienced and, at worst, will be placed at risk by having to walk in the dark to and from the car parks.

Staff were responding after security men moved in yesterday to redirect them to alternative car parks about five to ten minutes walk away from their offices.

The Galleries say they have had to take the steps to provide more parking for their own shoppers.

A Public and Community Services Union spokesman said last night: "The management have threatened in previous years to withdraw parking but have never actually taken steps to do so.

"Staff are not happy about the move. They are customers too and shop at the Galleries 12 months a year - about 700 workers leave each lunchtime to shop in the Galleries."

He said some workers had threatened to boycott the Galleries. But the union hopes to resolve the matter amicably and will be meeting management tomorrow.

The Galleries manager Les Pickering said any inconvenience would be minimal, while safety would not be compromised, because footpaths were well lit.

He said: "We have 3,000 car parking spaces for shoppers.

"We have been co-existing with and allowing workers at Durham House to use our car parking.

"But there are more workers and there are now 700 cars using our spaces every day.

"The other day I found only five free car parking spaces. Today there were 20-40 free spaces."

"We haven't asked them to leave our premises. And they can still park for free."

Mr Pickering was unperturbed by the threat of a boycott. He said: "We certainly do not want to lose their custom. But to put things in perspective, we had 47,000 shoppers on Saturday.