There's a great offer in store at Sainsbury's Southport - an hour and half's free parking.

It recently introduced a new camera controlled parking system that's still being 'fine tuned' which means there are no penalties or costs involved with staying for an hour and half extra over the initial 30 minutes.

It's expected the new regime - were shoppers spend over £5 to stay for two hours in total free of charge - will be fully operational later this week.

This afternoon, a Sainsbury's PR officer told QLocal: " We can confirm we’re introducing a new parking system at our Southport store to improve traffic flow and ensure customers have access to spaces when they need them."

Not if late Saturday morning was anything to go by when shoppers were queuing to enter the car park and then driving round and round looking for spaces...