OT: Hospital parking charges removed?

some people (including me) do

but not all hospitals have surrounding streets

I know of one hospital in an out of town location where the local market rate for parking would be zero

but you can't park on the main road because it is, um, a main road.

Apart from the hospital, there is no reason to park there

but I can't accept that the provision of the hospital creates its own market for charging high fees

None of the hospitals I frequent do that. They all charge significantly in excess

There are a great many reasons for going to a hospital other than A&E.

Yes when other car parks cost you more such as at train stations and other areas where there's no where to park.

As an indicator of that, my local NHS hopsital has pay for parking, and also a free drop-off area near the doors. Inevitably, you can never actually drop anyone off there as it's full, and the same cars will often be there for far longer than the alloted 10 min.

This document has some interesting costings for providing parking. I don't know how accurate they are, but nonetheless, people sometimes forget that providing a parking space isn't free.

They do.

Not quite sure about being able to park for free is going to make it easier to get to an appointment on time? More likely even more difficult as free parking means even more people would use it.

Then there's no problem then is there, you have an efficient company running the car park nothing to do with nurses. whether or not they are charging them the right amount is another question.

How much time do you allow for a hospital appointment?

And you then want unlimited free parking at a hospital? This is the economics of a Brexiteer? Figures.

That's rather a difficult and unfair quesion isn't it. Last time I went with my brother we had to wait about an hour but we got their 15mins early. Of course if you'd asked about my cats vet it's a far easier question I've or rather my cat has always been seen within 15mins of me getting there. I've never been to a hospital with a better record, I've always felt lucky if it;s under an hour, longest time in A&E was about 4 1/2 hours.

A hospital in the middle of nowhere and no roads other than a main one? Sounds very inconvenient. ;-)

In that case, if there was no reason for others to use a free hospital carpark, that would be fairy nuff. But most will have reasonable PT, so some would use it as a park and ride.

Must admit I didn't look closely. Except to notice the on street parking chargers were well over the norm for the borough.

My view is money is better spent on patient's treatment than giving it back to car drivers who happen to insist on parking at a hospital.

Many on here seem to think it impossible to get to a hospital appointment unless you own a car.

My worst was about 3½ hours. Following an accident where I'd cracked a bone in my forearm, I was given an appointment for the Fractures Clinic at

Be interesting to know the value of the land used for car parking at my local hospital if it had panning permission for housing. Easy access to a tube station, so I'd guess at many millions.

If you're in a town then visting your local hospital by public transport is fine. That doen't always apply when you're in the country.

Recently, with my local charitable hat on, I had to take a patient to a hospital some 20 miles away since it was the only one where her particualr problem could be dealt with. If I hadn't taken her, she's have needed a taxi to the main line station, change @ Clapham junction on to train to Ashford Middlesex) and then take another taxi. Public transport is fine if it goes the way you wnat.

It can be if the public transport in the area doesn't give a suitable service. But, you don't have to own a car, there are plenty of charities who can provide a service.

I thought there was a website to search for that sort of thing I did it a c ouple of years ago, my local B&Q plot was about £3.5 million and owned by some offshore company.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5686654,-0.0296415,3a,75y,331.5h,99.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sB2Xr-3LHxrdtvtOntFkcTA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

B&Q have gone and a lidle will open in september, there's a srewfix on the next road and a few 100m to the right a ITS tools store is opening up.

"The annual maintenance cost for surface car parking spaces is between £500 and £1,000 per space per year"

How much!

What are they doing - resurfacing it with gold leaf every 6 months?

We have three car parking spaces outside our block of flats

and the annual maintenance costs of each of them has been zero for each of the past 9 years since the block was built and they are still perfectly serviceable. (and from experience of several other blocks of flats that I have lived in zero is what everybody spends on their parking spaces maintenance each year)

tim