A woman has expressed her outrage after her car was locked in a car park overnight when she refused to pay £90 to open the exit gate.

Michelle Lewis, 25, visited Dinton pastures on Saturday March 16 and parked in their overflow car park as the main one was full.

After walking around the park for a few hours, Ms Lewis returned to her car at 5:10 pm to find out that the exit gate was locked and she and two families with young children were now stuck.

“There was a really small sign when entering the car park that said it closed at 5 pm,” she said. “But other than that it wasn’t clear at all. And the main one closes at 9 pm so why is this one any different?”

Ms Lewis said that everyone became quite worried about what they should do, especially the parents who had really small children.

A few locals told the group to go to the ranger’s office to see if there was anyone there that could help them, but it was empty.

“I called an out of hours council number that was by the office, and a woman picked up. She seemed really confused at first as to what I was asking, but eventually told me there was a £90 fine to open the gate,” Ms Lewis said.

Ms Lewis confirmed that this is displayed on a sign in the car park, but that it isn’t the easiest thing to read especially when the car park is full.

The woman on the phone said that there were no other options and that Ms Lewis would have to pay the £90, which she could do so through the council’s website.

“I guess it was my fault as it was past 5 pm,” Ms Lewis said. “But I was only 10 minutes late, which does seem a little stupid.”

The woman told Ms Lewis that there was a link to pay on the Wokingham Council website.

She said that to open the gate they would have to open the link, pay it then forward the email confirmation to their out-of-hours address.

Ms Lewis said “It was such a lengthy process and all of us were really confused. I scoured the website to try and find the link to pay the fee but couldn’t find it anywhere.”

After trying and failing to find the link, she called the council back but no one answered the phone.

Eventually, everyone who had their vehicle stuck in the car park decided to leave their car there overnight as there was no way of exiting.

Wokingham Borough Council were asked if they would like to provide a comment, but declined.