By Dave Lord and Maura Bowman

ORGANISERS OF the T in the Park music festival have apologised to fans turned away amid chaotic scenes on Friday.

Thousands of music lovers were denied entry to the Balado site as unseasonal weather rendered car parks completely unusable.

There was gridlock on roads surrounding the site, with tailbacks of up to 12 miles reported on the M90.

Some devastated music lovers were eventually turned away after being stuck in their cars for up to six hours.

And yesterday BEAR Scotland moved swiftly to counteract claims it was partly to blame for the chaos.

The company, which handles the management and maintenance of trunk roads, said all roadworks on the M90 between Bridge of Earn and Milnathort were completed by Tuesday.

Repairs to the southbound carriageway had caused problems for motorists heading for the Game Conservancy Scottish Fair at Scone the previous weekend and some drivers heading for Balado apparently believed related traffic control measures were still in force.

However, a spokeswoman for Bear Scotland said the company work was completed well ahead of T in the Park.

“There were cones on the road, which may have confused people,” she continued. “However, they were nothing to do with any roadworks from BEAR, but were part of the traffic management being used by the organisers for the event itself.”

Other drivers hit out over the lack of information en-route, with Ronald Matchett, of Sutherland Place in Dundee, saying, “They had these matrix systems at the Friarton Bridge telling people traffic information.

“But they didn’t have any information about the massive queues on the M90. If they had put this information on there then people like myself would have been able to go another route.

“I made a complaint to the police but they said that it was the council that was in charge of the signs. I am going to make an official complaint.”

Police reported the situation was significantly better over the weekend after many thousands heeded the advice to travel by bus rather than car.

Extra bus services were provided and organisers of T in the Park praised the “resilience and patience” of fans throughout Friday’s chaos.

Festival director Geoff Ellis admitted the tailbacks were a “nightmare.”

“The traffic and parking difficulties on Friday were extremely regrettable but completely unavoidable due to the very bad weather that we have been experiencing over the last few weeks,” he said.

“We did everything that we could to try and get fans into the car parks but we could not control the weather and unfortunately we had to take the decision to close down the car parks.”