New Cross Hospital staff face on-site parking fee

Staff at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital will be charged up to £252 a year to park at work under new plans announced by health bosses today.

The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals Trust wants to charge its staff up to £5 a week or £21 a month to park on the site. Bosses hope that it will ease parking problems around the hospital.

And they say they hope to encourage anyone who lives less than a kilometre away not to apply for a permit.

However, nearby residents today raised fears that the move could mean more staff park in the surrounding streets rather than pay for a permit.

Heath Town ward councillor Milkinder Jaspal, who has campaigned for action on behalf of residents over the issue, said today: "I think it will be very detrimental to the surrounding areas – already staff park outside residents' homes instead of paying to stay on the public car park."

A meeting was held with staff last week to inform them of the potential changes. David Loughton, chief executive of the trust, said staff would be charged up to £5 a week for full-time workers, or up to a maximum of £21 a month.

He said the trust was not planning to ban the 500 members of staff who lived within a kilometre from having a permit, but hoped that people who lived close enough to walk would choose to do so.

"The bottom line is, at the moment I am basically just continually building more car parking spaces for staff – and I can't keep using my scarce capital to do that," he said. "There are patients who struggle to park, and I need to think about them."

A member of staff, who did not wish to be named, said: "People are up in arms about this. It's going to hit a lot of us hard."