Weekend queues sparked a council meeting

Drivers in Coventry said a weekend Costco run could mean sitting in traffic for up to an hour, with queues backing out of the car park and onto the A45 dual carriageway. The complaints were serious enough that Coventry City Council scheduled the issue for a Cabinet Member for City Services meeting on April 15, 2026. (uk.news.yahoo.com) (edemocracy.coventry.gov.uk) The push came through a petition with 80 signatures asking the council to force Costco to stop weekend queues spilling onto the A45 in Canley and Tile Hill. Petitioners asked for pre-booked weekend entry slots, on-site queuing lanes, traffic marshals, and penalties if the problem was not fixed within 6 months. (edemocracy.coventry.gov.uk) The council’s papers say the knock-on effects were bigger than a slow car park exit. Officers explicitly cited impacts on residents, emergency access, air quality, and nearby businesses when traffic stacks up on the A45 approach. (uk.news.yahoo.com) Costco told the council it had already tried one practical fix during the busiest shopping period of the year. The company said it provided 70 off-site staff parking spaces over Christmas so more spaces on the Coventry site could be used by customers, which it said would reduce delays. (uk.news.yahoo.com) Costco also told the council it would keep deploying staff on exceptional peak days to manage traffic on site. That detail matters because the jam is starting before shoppers reach the entrance, at the point where cars are trying to get into a full or slow-moving car park. (uk.news.yahoo.com) Coventry City Council is working on a road-layout answer rather than a booking-system answer. Council officers said they had prepared designs to rationalise and improve lane markings on the approach to the car park, and those designs had already been shared with Costco. (uk.news.yahoo.com) (edemocracy.coventry.gov.uk) That means the first change is likely to be paint, not policy. Better lane markings can sort cars earlier, like adding clearer lines at an airport security queue, so fewer drivers hesitate, cut across, or block the main road while waiting to turn in. (uk.news.yahoo.com) (edemocracy.coventry.gov.uk) The council also drew a hard line around what it cannot do. Under current highways legislation, it said it cannot force Costco to use pre-booked weekend entry slots or impose penalties for non-compliance, so those ideas can only be adopted voluntarily by the retailer. (uk.news.yahoo.com) (edemocracy.coventry.gov.uk) The Coventry warehouse sits on Torrington Avenue and opens at 9:30 in the morning on Saturdays and 11:00 in the morning on Sundays, which helps explain why demand can bunch into a few weekend peaks instead of spreading evenly through the day. Costco’s own store page also shows the site has a petrol station, food court, tyre centre, and optical centre, so not every car arriving is there for the same errand or the same length of stay. (costco.co.uk) What happens next is narrower than the petition demanded but more concrete than a promise to “look into it.” Coventry’s April 15 meeting papers recommend noting the petitioners’ concerns, backing the agreed actions already under way, and then monitoring whether the new lane arrangement actually stops queues from reaching the A45. (edemocracy.coventry.gov.uk)