TCP parking notice in a hospital

Rebecca2210

Hi there please help. I am a young student nurse who has to work in the hospital to finish my training. I am not allowed a parking permit and on some days park in the hospital car park as there is no public transport to get me to work on time and some mornings I refuse to walk the extra half an hour after a forty minute drive to my work. Due to this I have seven parking notices from this firm and am now getting individual notices in the post for each asking me to pay a now increased amount. I have read most of these forums but am unsure weither or not to dispute these notices with the appeal letter I received from the hospital or just ignore these notices all together. Thanks for your help if you reply!

trisontana

Just ignore them.

Coupon-mad

Appeal letter from the hospital? A template? Can we see a pic of the wording?

Generally ignore any PPC fake PCN but I find it interesting that you are being pursued on behalf of the hospital (allegedly, according to the PPC!) but that the hospital have given you an appeal letter!

Some fun to be had here maybe and if you do send something the hospital has given you it would make a mockery of any possible (unlikely) Small claim!

Don't send anything at the mo, keep ignoring but let's see that wording please. It could be interesting to see what the hospital thinks this fake PCN is...

McKneff

Definitely ignore everything they throw at you.
But you really are pushing your luck, you have to find an alternative. You cant go on
ad infinitum. You'll end up with 5 a week, thats really taking the !!!!

Park in one of the side streets outside the hospital.

peter_the_piper

Third all above. Am I the only one who thinks the name TCP is appropriate for a hospital.

birkee

Perhaps it depends on where you work, whether any sympathy is due. My reason?
In our major city hospital, you can't get on the car park at all on occasions, even if disabled.
Taking my Wife to hospital for a check-up, after her second heart bypass operation, I had to stop in the car park leaving her to walk up a long steep hill because there were no bays available, and of course she couldn't push me in my wheelchair.

I waited an hour before a single car left the car park, because it would appear, it was fully occupied by staff of the hospital, so there was little, or no turnover.
The disabled bays are a single row down the side of the hospital, and if you stop there when there isn't a bay, you completely block the drive to all other traffic and ambulances. (in one end, out the other drive)

So, as you see, in my case I've not a lot of sympathy for staff parking problems.

Coupon-mad

birkee wrote: »

Perhaps it depends on where you work, whether any sympathy is due. My reason?
In our major city hospital, you can't get on the car park at all on occasions, even if disabled.
Taking my Wife to hospital for a check-up, after her second heart bypass operation, I had to stop in the car park leaving her to walk up a long steep hill because there were no bays available, and of course she couldn't push me in my wheelchair.

I waited an hour before a single car left the car park, because it would appear, it was fully occupied by staff of the hospital, so there was little, or no turnover.
The disabled bays are a single row down the side of the hospital, and if you stop there when there isn't a bay, you completely block the drive to all other traffic and ambulances. (in one end, out the other drive)

So, as you see, in my case I've not a lot of sympathy for staff parking problems.

You are blaming the wrong people though, your mis-aimed annoyance is so common on these forums. The staff have to park somewhere and the majority are not highly-paid doctors, just ordinary people, often with long, unsociable working hours.

Blame the hospital. They have a legal duty under the Equalty Act 2010 to make reasonabe adjustments for disabled service-users. Now being a hospital, it's not difficult to see that the percentage of disabled bays outside would surely need to be a multiple of the usual 'Supermarket car park' calculation. They have clearly failed, from what you say here.

I would complain in writing to the hospital about lack of disabled bays - not moaning that people are taking them who do not have Blue Badges of course, because the driver/passenger could still be entitled to park there. Complaining simply that the hospital has NOT made sufficient provision under the Equality Act 2010 for disabled visitors, patients and service-users.

Remind them that they can be fined for an Equality Act (previously DDA) breach. Remind them of the obvious, that a hospital will have a much higher number of disabled visitors than other public services so if they did not consider that when designing the car park they need to reconsider before they are reported for this legal breach.

Bottom line is, by law they should provide more disabled bays unless there's a very good reason why that would not be possible. Simple.

birkee

Coupon-mad wrote: »

You are blaming the wrong people though, your mis-aimed annoyance is so common on these forums. The staff have to park somewhere and the majority are not highly-paid doctors, just ordinary people, often with long, unsociable working hours.

Blame the hospital. They have a legal duty under the Equalty Act 2010 to make reasonabe adjustments for disabled service-users. Now being a hospital, it's not difficult to see that the percentage of disabled bays outside would surely need to be a multiple of the usual 'Supermarket car park' calculation. They have clearly failed, from what you say here.

I would complain in writing to the hospital about lack of disabled bays - not moaning that people are taking them who do not have Blue Badges of course, because the driver/passenger could still be entitled to park there. Complaining simply that the hospital has NOT made sufficient provision under the Equality Act 2010 for disabled visitors, patients and service-users.

Remind them that they can be fined for an Equality Act (previously DDA) breach. Remind them of the obvious, that a hospital will have a much higher number of disabled visitors than other public services so if they did not consider that when designing the car park they need to reconsider before they are reported for this legal breach.

Bottom line is, by law they should provide more disabled bays unless there's a very good reason why that would not be possible. Simple.

With no room for any more disabled bays near the hospital, what are they supposed to do?
Perhaps they should label a lot of bays on the main car park as disabled bays only, THEN where are the staff going to park?

It's not a case of "should / shouldn't", it's a case of "can / can't".
Your response is, if they can't meet the legislative requirements, they should close the hospital.

Your mis-aimed annoyance at my post, so common on these forums, is shallow thinking in the extreme. Problems are multi layered.

Coupon-mad

birkee wrote: »

With no room for any more disabled bays near the hospital, what are they supposed to do?
Perhaps they should label a lot of bays on the main car park as disabled bays only, THEN where are the staff going to park?

It's not a case of "should / shouldn't", it's a case of "can / can't".
Your response is, if they can't meet the legislative requirements, thay should close the hospital.

Your mis-aimed annoyance at my post, so common on these forums, is shallow thinking in the extreme. Problems are multi layered.

Yes, they should label a lot of bays in the main car park as disabled. I was trying to help - the hospital has broken the law here.

RENEGADE_2

Rebecca2210 wrote: »

Hi there please help. I am a young student nurse who has to work in the hospital to finish my training. I am not allowed a parking permit and on some days park in the hospital car park as there is no public transport to get me to work on time and some mornings I refuse to walk the extra half an hour after a forty minute drive to my work. Due to this I have seven parking notices from this firm and am now getting individual notices in the post for each asking me to pay a now increased amount. I have read most of these forums but am unsure weither or not to dispute these notices with the appeal letter I received from the hospital or just ignore these notices all together. Thanks for your help if you reply!

You probably know that you are safe to ignore them. The PPC has no leg to stand on should it wish to commence litigation. My advice to you if you wish to end this quicker is to staple these "threatograms" together and send the whole lot back to the PPC informing them that you deny the debt, do not state your grounds but I assure you there are plenty. In your letter, also explain that if they believe you to owe them money for any reason, may they arrange a hearing where you shall meet them in front of a judge. I promise you they will not do this. Also, please admonish your antagonist not to send you another correspondence and also to order any third parties (lawyers, so-called "debt collection agences" et al) to discontinue writing to you. Warm them that if you should receive one more letter - now that you have denied the debt and told them you are happy to meet them face to face in County Court - you will report them for harassment, now this should make them go away. If not, you have a harassment case against every one of them. Denying a debt and requesting the matter be dealt by courts is something that need only be said once, you don't have to repeat it 50 times.

RENEGADE_2

Going on from above:

there are many useful posts on this thread. Coupon-Mad has raised the issue about the Equality Act (though not to Rebecca {OP}, another user) and it is totally clear that hospitals are not up to scratch. Care for patients and the majority of staff is appalling. There is a catalogue of reasons why you should not pay a penny to the PPC which range from technical to legal. Those awaiting a big fat cheque from you don't want to read this, they know everything! Arguing with them is like negotiating with a vending machine. So I say again: tell them you know the score, you owe them nothing, they can take it to court or stop writing to you. Final.