Hospital parking hike is ‘shameful’ say L&D patients

Our sister paper, the Herald & Post, revealed last week how visitors and patients will now pay as much as £12 for all day parking and a staggering £24 for an overnight stay.

Parking will be free for up to 30 minutes, but will then cost £4 for up to three hours and £6 for up to five hours.

The L&D defended its decision to hike prices saying that it had made “some difficult choices” in the hope that it might claw back some of the funds lost in government spending cuts.

But shocked Luton resident Hazel Hodges said: “The new parking charges are obscene.

How do they think people can afford these charges when everything else is going up? Soon we wont be able to afford to be ill.”

Before Monday, when the changes came into effect parking had been free for up to 20 minutes and had cost £2.50 thereafter for up to five hours.

Charges had not been increased for more than four years.

Clifford Robinson, of Turnpike Drive, said: “Parking charges at the L&D for an abysmal range of parking facilities are already over-priced and there are not enough parking spaces to allow patients to be sure they can park and keep their appointment.

“Shame on the hospital for passing costs down to the patients and visitors and those who can least afford them and then excuse their actions by saying everyone else has also increased them. Are we now going to have a two tier hospital parking where car parks are empty waiting to be used only by people who can richly afford them and everyone else tries to find on street parking that is free re-creating the problem that used to happen in Lime Avenue?”

A statement released by the L&D last week said that the price changes follow £100,000 improvements to payment machines, lighting and security.

The hospital also claim that the new charges will bring the L&D in line with other hospitals.

Concessionary rates are offered to frequent visitors such as renal patients, women coming to give birth, parents of seriously ill youngsters or families of those in critical care.

An L&D spokesman added yesterday: “We apologise for not being in a position to give more notice to the public about the parking tariff increase at the L&D , and recognise it would have been helpful to have the new prices more prominently displayed in advance.

“However, this is the first increase in the cost of parking at the L&D in 4 years and the decision to bring our parking charges in line with many other hospitals has not been taken lightly but as part of our plan to protect frontline services while managing reductions in the hospital budget.”

As well as hitting patients’ in the pocket, some local residents are concerned that L&D visitors will avoid car parks and pack surrounding residential roads instead of paying the fees.

One Charlwood Road resident, who did not wish to be named, said: “Many of the roads around here now have yellow lines and designated parking bays to prevent hospital overspill parking.

“But now more people will be willing to park a bit further away and walk to the hospital and this road has no parking restrictions. Coupled with a Luton Dunstable Busway stop set to open around the corner in the next couple of years, roads round here could soon become gridlocked with both hospital and commuter parking unless something is done.”