FURIOUS music lovers are demanding their money back after a high-profile concert starring opera legend Lesley Garrett descended into a traffic fiasco.

Thousands of ticket-holders were caught in a tailback up to eight miles long as they flocked from across the South to watch the internationally-renowned diva perform at Mottisfont Abbey near Romsey.

The town, although miles away from the National Trust-controlled venue, was brought to a standstill from early on Saturday evening with angry concertgoers and local residents alike unable to avoid the gridlock.

And hundreds of irate people who had paid up to £20 each to attend the outdoor show, which also featured the Brandenburg Sinfonietta, simply turned their cars round on the narrow country lanes and went home.

Many of the estimated crowd of 10,000 who did eventually make it to the abbey arrived to find the show nearing its close.

Miss Garrett, clearly embarrassed by the fiasco, apologised from the stage and did three encores to pacify disgruntled onlookers.

Ironically the concert itself, and a fireworks finale which followed, were described by those who managed to see it as a great success.

Today nobody was keen to take the blame for the snarl-up. The promoters and Romsey police are now set for an inquest into the shambles.

Among the many disappointed people were Totton teacher Stephen Brice and his wife Angela who, together with two other couples, left their Holland Road home at 4.30pm but didn't get to the abbey until 8.30pm.

"It was a mathematical impossibility to get everybody in there in time. There simply weren't enough entrances to the car park. We ended up eating our picnic in darkness.

"The organisers need to be held to account. We were denied access to a concert for which we had paid a total of £120 through absolutely no fault of our own. We will definitely be asking for a refund.''

Promoter Tim Lowden, of Plato Productions. said: "We are very upset indeed this has happened and we are absolutely baffled as to why it did.

But he said he was "disappointed with the lack of police resources" at the event.

"We were told they did not regard it as a major event and that their low presence was due a shortage in manpower.

"To get that you need to satisfy them over crowd and traffic control arrangements. There was more than enough parking space, the car park was by no means full, we could have taken 3,000 more cars'' Hampshire Police spokesman Pauline Davey said: "In our view it was the combination of the sheer volume of traffic combined with very narrow lanes which led to problems.''

She said police would now be seeking a meeting with Mr Lowden to thrash out the problems.

Mr Lowden declined to comment on whether upset customers would get their cash back

Ironically, another concert was being held at Mottisfont yesterday afternoon when jazz legend Kenny Ball joined the Syd Lawrence Orchestra.

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