The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Parking at three Lincolnshire hospitals will be free while problems with the new system are ironed out.
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) has announced that it will be providing free car parking for patients and visitors following problems with its new parking system.
The Trust plans to reintroduce charges on Monday, January 7.
For the last month, the Trust has been operating a new parking system, which does away with tickets in favour of a new automatic number plate recognition parking (ANPR) system.
Long queues for the payment machines have seen patients standing in the wind and rain trying to pay their charges on the new machine, and staff have been handing out information on how to pay online instead.
However, the online system wasn’t working as cars weren’t registering on newly created accounts.
A statement from the hospital trust said: “Following the implementation of a new automatic number plate recognition parking (ANPR) system at the end of November, the Trust has experienced a number of delays and issues.
“Following feedback from patients and visitors The Trust has decided to make parking free during this period.”
Paul Boocock, Director of Estates and Facilities at ULHT said: “We currently have some issues with the signal between the cameras and the pay machines.
“We have listened to the feedback from our patients and visitors and have taken the decision to allow for free parking until our parking provider is able to improve the connection between them. We hope this will alleviate some of the worries that we know this has caused.
“I’d like to thank everyone for their patience and support over the past month and also apologise for any inconvenience it has caused.”
Until Monday, patients and visitors will be able to park for free at Lincoln, Grantham and Boston’s Pilgrim hospitals. Parking cameras will still be up and running however, and will be monitoring any inappropriate parking.
