Petition fights rise in Sandwell and Birmingham hospital parking fees
More than 300 people have signed a petition against proposed hospital parking charge rises.
Sandwell General and City Hospital in Birmingham will see charges rise by 20 per cent from next month under a new parking scheme.
Hourly rates for parking at the two hospitals will increase, as will the cost of pre-paid car parking tokens. The cost of parking for 24 hours will remain the same. Brian Childs, chairman of patient group Upper G.I. Blues, has collected a petition calling for trust bosses to axe the plans. He wants a standard charge of £2 per visit.
He said: "We are asking the trust to consider 'the client' the patients, carers and visitors when setting the car park charges and to be one of the first hospital trusts in the country to introduce fair car parking charges instead of penalising 'the client' for the hospital's inadequacies."
Under new plans from the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Hospital Trust, only the first 15 minutes of parking will be free for drop-offs, rather than the 20 minutes it is currently, and the cost of parking for the first hour at the two hospitals will rise by 19 per cent from £2.10 to £2.50.
Parking for two hours will increase from £3.10 to £3.50, for four hours it will go up by more than 10 per cent from £3.60 to £4 and for five hours from £4.10 to £4.50.
The cost of buying pre-paid parking tokens will rise by 20 per cent, and those wanting to park will be able to buy five tokens for £10.
"The trust has stated that they have not increased 24-hour car park fees for the last three years," said Mr Childs.
"In fact three years ago the cost of staying on the hospital car parks for over five hours was reduced by half, from £10 to £5 per day."
Mr Childs, from Brackendale Drive in Walsall, added: "I have collected over 300 signatures to the petition, if I could have spent more time at Sandwell hospital and have someone over at City Hospital I am sure that this figure would have been in the thousands."
Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals Trust said it last hiked the fee in April 2011 and this was in line with the VAT increase from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent.
A statement said: "The rise in car parking charges is necessary to cover the costs of much needed improvements to the car parks, including mending the surface of some of the car parks.
"We are not willing to raise the money we need by taking it from the cleaning, patient transport or patient care budgets."
