Anger as hospital parking fee trebles.

Byline: By Dave Black 

Protests have been voiced over a huge rise in car-parking charges for visitors and patients at Northumberland's biggest hospital.

Fees at Wansbeck General in Ashington were recently increased from pounds 1.10 for four hours to 80p an hour after health bosses invested pounds 400,000 in improving the car parks.

Now the rise has been branded absolutely horrendous by one patient and a local councillor is planning to raise the issue at the county council's health scrutiny committee.

Last week, a survey revealed that North hospitals are charging patients and visitors more than pounds 3m a year to park, with the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust alone receiving pounds 1.04m in 2004/05.

The big rise in fees at 830-space Wansbeck General was raised at Northumberland County Council's state-of-the-area debate last week by Maureen Dyer, 65, who was recently a patient there.

Yesterday Mrs Dyer, who lives with her husband Ray in Orpine Court, Ashington, said: "I found out about the increase in parking charges when the husband of a woman on my ward came in and was furious about having to pay 80p an hour when it had always been pounds 1.10 for four hours. It is an absolutely horrendous increase and I can't see how they can justify it.

"I have no objection to paying a parking charge, but it is terrible that it has gone up this much and with no warning about it.

"There were ladies on my ward from Bellingham and Haltwhistle and their visitors were not only having to pay the cost of petrol to come to Ashington, but were also faced with pounds 2.40 for three hours' parking. It is a massive hike and it was the talk of the hospital while I was there."

Coun Tom Saunders, who represents the Wansbeck area on the county council, said he had only just found out about the big increase in charges at the hospital. "There must be almost 1,000 parking spaces there and they are nearly always all full, so the trust must be making big money from this.

"I was really shocked and disappointed when I found out it had gone up so steeply. There is not a lot of money floating about in this area and when people are visiting relatives for three or four hours it gets expensive."

A spokeswoman for Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Wansbeck General, said pounds 420,000 had been invested in improving car parks and installing security cameras at the hospital in the past two years.

Parking fees at Ashington were recently brought in line with those at the rest of the trust's hospitals but, unlike at North Tyneside General, increases were not phased in gradually.

The spokeswoman said: "Our car parking charges are the same as other hospital trusts in the region. Also, unlike some trusts, we have placed a maximum limit on our daily charges so the cost of parking is 80p per hour, up to a maximum amount of pounds 4.80. Other trusts charge more than pounds 20 a day."