What crackdown? Hospital car parks raked in a record £175m last year



It's expensive. Chester le Street hospital is £1.20 for 0-2 hours. The council owned car park right next door to it is 40p an hour or 60p for two hours.

I usually park in Morrisons, which is a five minute walk away but it's free :oops:
 
steve30000 said:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5216557/Hospitals-make-record-175m-car-parking-charges.html

Explains the explosion of permits, double yellow lines, parking restrictions all over the place next to the hospital here.

Its just to ease traffic congestion though..
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Having worked within the parking industry I'm on the fence with this to be honest. Without charging people to park where does the money come from to maintain and build the car parks, pay the staff and pay for very expensive barriers and ticket machines etc. Without any proper parking spaces and or enforcement it would be chaos, there'd be cars parked all over, blocking ambulances etc etc. However Prices should be set just to cover cost and not to profit. Parking eye etc should be banned
 
They just f***ing chance it and try to dish out fines anyway, hoping people have chucked the ticket. Happened to my nana a while back when she left with about 40 minutes left and it's since happened to my mam who works there.
 
bennett83 said:
Having worked within the parking industry I'm on the fence with this to be honest. Without charging people to park where does the money come from to maintain and build the car parks, pay the staff and pay for very expensive barriers and ticket machines etc. Without any proper parking spaces and or enforcement it would be chaos, there's be cars parked all over, blocking ambulances etc etc.
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There's a sensible way to do this, without charging absolutely ridiculous hourly rates..

I'm assuming the majority of the car parks are privately owned?
 
RichD said:
Nurses and hospital staff are being charged to park it' disgusting...
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Parking Eye etc., can override that as well. The supermarkets have a terminal out the back where you log in with your car reg and it puts you on a list so you don't get charged. I do it when I'm working in a store and I'm going to exceed the free parking time.
 
steve30000 said:
There's a sensible way to do this, without charging absolutely ridiculous hourly rates..

I'm assuming the majority of the car parks are privately owned?
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Most will allow a private company run it for them so it's in the companies interest to make as much money as possible through fines as the hospital will make the cash off actual ticket sales. I've been involved in systems for a London hospital which charged a minimum £4 for upto 2 hours, £40 if you lost your ticket
 
Doesn't the NHS make money from this that funds treatments, building upkeep etc? And in other industries people have to pay to park at work too (or get no parking at all!). And if you made it free people would abuse it and park there to do there shopping / work elsewhere (at some hospitals this is worse than others).

Playing devils advocate a little, but there's two sides to every arguement. And IMHO it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things that government could address.

Where I do think it should be free is people who have no choice to attend regularly (ie monthly treatments) for the long term AND have restricted mobility. But even then they probably get a blue badge (which means free) or can get PTS?
 
Hull_Mackem said:
Where I do think it should be free is people who have no choice to attend regularly (ie monthly treatments) for the long term AND have restricted mobility. But even then they probably get a blue badge (which means free) or can get PTS?
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Sunderland have a monthly pass. I think it was £10. I was buying them when my Dad was in long term as I was visiting 3-4 times a week for two hours at a time, so it was worthwhile buying the pass.
 
bennett83 said:
Having worked within the parking industry I'm on the fence with this to be honest. Without charging people to park where does the money come from to maintain and build the car parks, pay the staff and pay for very expensive barriers and ticket machines etc. Without any proper parking spaces and or enforcement it would be chaos, there'd be cars parked all over, blocking ambulances etc etc. However Prices should be set just to cover cost and not to profit. Parking eye etc should be banned
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Some of us are old enough to remember when hospital parking was free and i dont remember cars parking all over the place and blocking ambulances.
 
Car parks take up a ton of space and cost a bloody fortune. If you want to the privilege of being able to park you should be paying for it. 175m is pennies as well in the grand scheme of things.
 
Gingga said:
Some of us are old enough to remember when hospital parking was free and i dont remember cars parking all over the place and blocking ambulances.
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How would you know this didn't happen without spending all day every day there? It's shite paying for parking especially when your bad but without the cash you'd be parking on unsecure wasteland with cars everywhere. I can see both sides of the argument
 

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