Hospital car parks

trisontana

EllaKeat wrote: »

It depends on what system they bring in though.....at my hospital in Durham, there are barriers in place, you take a ticket and pay at a machine before leaving. No pay, no barrier rise.

That's good because it eliminates the need to involve private parking companies and their extortionate demands. This is the system that supermarkets should use. I know of at least two who used to do that, then they took the PPC's shilling, and now alienate their customers who fall foul the PPC's stupid "rules".

peter_the_piper

Our hospital has just started this, shame really cos it was fun handing the unused tickets to another driver.

Sir_Roger_deLodger

taffy056 wrote: »

.....what i don't agree with is with hospitals and other public bodies charging for use of their car parks, tax payers fund these places, there should be no charges for the sick or people visiting them.

Perhaps one day England will catch up with Wales Taffy, charging for parking at hospitals is disgusting. I collected a number of invoices from APCOA last year when my Dad was in hospital. Of course I have successfully ignored them!

Coupon-mad

mikey72 wrote: »

I'm glad someone pays though.
If no-one paid, I'd be forced to park in a scruffy car park, rather than a decent tarmac surface, in an area an town I want to be in.
You can't get something for nothing, but something someone else subsidises is nearly as good.

But the PPC doesn't resurface the car park or pay for its upkeep under any contract I know of.

The only 'service' they offer is to tell the landowner that they will 'police' the car park for free (or they'll give the landowner/occupier a small rake-off). The PPC then pockets huge amounts of payments and does absolutely NOTHING by way of any service. Nothing in the way of making car parks nice places to park - the upkeep is still the responsibility of the landowner.

That's why the whole 'private parking industry' (and I use the term loosely!) has been likened to a protection racket. A parasite leeching off the back of real services.

taffy056

Sir_Roger_deLodger wrote: »

Perhaps one day England will catch up with Wales Taffy, charging for parking at hospitals is disgusting. I collected a number of invoices from APCOA last year when my Dad was in hospital. Of course I have successfully ignored them!

Maybe some day it will happen , it can only be a good thing to allow free parking for patients and visitors

peter_the_piper

Equally important Free parking for staff.

molerat

The big problem at my local large city hospital is that they have a free car park on the outskirts of town with a nice bus stop and shelter with regular cheap busses into town.

peter_the_piper

Ours does not have that problem, they admit its purely a moneymaking exercise. It generates about 1/2 mill a year. Mind you this is the same hospital which sacked its head for inefficiency and other things and paid her £275,000

mikey72

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Equally important Free parking for staff.

molerat wrote: »

The big problem at my local large city hospital is that they have a free car park on the outskirts of town with a nice bus stop and shelter with regular cheap busses into town.

Even more important, free parking for shoppers!
Why pay for municipal carparks?

taffy056

molerat wrote: »

The big problem at my local large city hospital is that they have a free car park on the outskirts of town with a nice bus stop and shelter with regular cheap busses into town.

There are still barriers and such at the hospital local to me, they are permanently up now, I suppose if abuse was serious they could introduce tokens that you can get from reception or nurses stations in the hospital, that way they know the car park is used by people visiting the hospital.

On a side note I asked my friend who is a nurse, and she gets free parking at this hospital, and they have just introduced a new system.

http://www.sourcesecurity.com/news/articles/co-2521-ga-co-871-ga-co-6712-ga.4964.html