Corbyn Parkonomics...

[mushroom25]

Jeremy Corbyn promises to abolish hospital car park charges:-
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/08/labour-end-hospital-car-parking-charges-england-corbyn
a laudable policy, but can he deliver? whilst many see parking charges as a tax on the sick, what's the alternative? most hospitals started charging to stop non hospital users blagging space at the expense of the sick, and to ration a limited resource to those who really need it; and yet at my hospital, which charges £5 for 4 hours, there are still no available spaces for much of the day. how will abolishing charges make more spaces available?

[naomi24]

It's been happening for years. Here's a report from 2010.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/jun/09/nhs-generating-millions-parking-charges

[lindapalmara]

Our hospital is almost in the centre of town and before parking charges were introduced all the workers from nearby parked there all day and there were no spaces left for patients and visitors. However I agree that parking charges have rocketed and are most unfair. Maybe there should be a system where appointment letters have some sort of use once bar code to swipe in a machine. That might deter the non hospital parking.

[Old_Geezer]

Electronic surveillance should be able to solve the issue of workers parking. Limit to an hour unless one has a card/badge collected from the hospital to extend the time. Supermarkets are capable of reading registration numbers and warning when someone has to leave. I'm sure hospitals could do similar. Tow to the pound if they flaunt the rules.

Parking should be available for workers to the area anyway. It's wrong to expect to have job opportunities available in an area and yet not provide for those who agree to fill them. Planners who create an industrial or retail area should plan for the private transport too, if they have any pretence to skill at all.

[jourdain2]

OP.......I don't know. I just know inside that charging people in trouble is wrong. Before now I have handed over the remains of an overpaid ticket to a nurse going on duty(yes, she had to pay her parking)and that is so wrong. There are NO parking charges at hospitals in France ( I drove around a lot at times). If they can do it, so can we.

[woofgang]

OG...there was a planning policy brought in by the Labour Party to limit the amount of parking allowed in new developments including hospitals....this also extended to residential areas and was only reconsidered and rescinded when the coalition parliament was in power.
I was involved in the very early planning stages when a new PFI hospital was being designed. It was going to be built in an area with zero public transport. My department, who were responsible for taking people home to assess their homes and make plans for their discharge were told we could only have one third of the parking spaces we needed which was 2 instead of 6 so not masses. When we queried this we were told that staff were to be encouraged to cycle to work. Our response was to ask whether the patient should travel on the crossbar or in a cycle trailer on home visits.