8 � LOCAL NEWS
SPRING BEAUTY Times photographer Craig Matthews snapped this blossom in Pembury last week
Fury as just 10p in the parking pound goes into patient care
90 per cent of income from Pembury hospital meters swallowed by ‘costs’ INCOME The car park raised £1,963,000 in a year
• Adam Wells JUST ten pence in every pound spent on parking at Tunbridge Wells Hospital last year went directly to patient care, the Times can reveal. Of the £1,963,000 made in Pembury and Maidstone hospital meters in the 2013-14 financial year, £1,770,000 was swallowed by the cost of running the car parks, according to health chiefs,
Wednesday 6th May 2015
leaving £193,000 to go back into the hospitals. Martin Lazarus, who was using the car park on April 23, said, “It’s disgusting. “I’m a great believer in the NHS, but it gets abused by certain people. They take, take, take all the time.” Fellow user Chris Manser agreed, adding: “Ninety pence of every £1 should go towards treating patients.
Why should we pay so much if the hospital gets so little? We shouldn’t have to pay at all.” The Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, which runs both facilities, employs a private company to manage its car parks – but neither the trust nor the firm would reveal how much this was worth. A spokesman for the trust said: “The trust’s car parks are owned and managed by the trust. The trust has appointed First Parking on a fixed annual contract basis to produce signage and back of office support for parking enforcement. “First Parking do not receive any income from the trust for car park management – they receive income when civil parking notices are issued.” At the Pembury hospital, parking costs from £2 for 30 minutes to an hour, £6 for a day. Kent-based over-50s services provider Saga surveyed more than 10,000 people on hospital parking this year. Of the respondents, 67 per cent said it was wrong for hospitals to levy parking charges,
12 per cent said the charges meant they would cut visits short and 18 per cent said they would make them visit less. A Saga statement read: “This ‘visitors’ tax’ is a stealth tax on the compassion of the relatives of the sick and makes the nation’s hospitals more lonely and isolated places for many people in need of companionship to aid recovery. “Hospital car parking charges are a rip-off for patients, their families and often NHS staff. They should be abolished.” Ukip health policy includes a pledge to scrap hospital parking charges nationwide, with health spokesman Louise Bours labelling them a ‘shocking tax on the sick and vulnerable’. Tunbridge Wells Ukip councillor Chris Hoare said: “The party policy on abolishing car park charges is right and proper. “The idea of just 10p from every £1 people are spending on parking going into patient care is disgraceful. If it’s not going towards treating people, where is it going?”
WHY SO LITTLE MONEY? Chris Manser
VISITOR Daniel Bryce pays for his parking
DISGUSTED Martin Lazarus