THE introduction of car parking charges at Wharfedale General Hospital in Otley has been condemned as an unjustified cost on health.

Visitors to the hospital will now have to make use of the pay-and-display machines sited in the car park and staff will have to pay for parking discs.

Anyone found to be using the car park without payment could face having their vehicle wheelclamped.

Otley Town Councillor Phil Coyne (Lab, Ashfield Ward), said the charging policy was totally inappropriate and was a case of trying to introduce a city centre policy to a rural community.

He said: "I condemn it and so does Otley Town Council. It is an unwarranted extra taxation on health purely introduced for fundraising reasons which I personally think is not justified.

"It will displace vehicles onto the crowded roads around the hospital. Considering the level of public transport provision for the hospital, it is totally unfair.

"Many people travel there in cars and they have to pay, they don't have any option. I happened to be in the hospital and a mother arrived with her child in the accident section and she said she had rushed there and hadn't brought any money. I think this is an important point."

Coun Coyne said the only possible justification for the move would be to spend the funds raised on public transport facilities for the hospital.

But a spokesman for the Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, said that the decision had been made some time ago to phase in charges to cover costs that would be otherwise paid for by the trust.

He said: "The Trust Board felt we were actually subsidising car parking because, while it looks like it was free, there was a cost to the health service with maintenance to the car park and security.

"There is a significant cost to the trust in providing car parking spaces. It doesn't just apply to the Wharfedale Hospital, spaces are already charged for at the Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) and other sites like the Cookridge Hospital are having car parking charges introduced."

The spokesman said the minimum charge for visitors was 50p for the first two hours and then 50p for each successive hour and £5 per month for staff to have parking discs.

He said: "We don't think that paying 50p for two hours is an unreasonable amount to pay.

"There are signs that those who don't pay may be wheelclamped, but we do have to have some deterrent and there will be officers patrolling.

"We are a hospital first and foremost and there to care for the needs of our patients, so we are not going to have somebody leaping out with wheelclamps.

"We have had parking charges at the LGI and people are allowed to drop visitors off so they can get the treatment they need. But if everybody parked their car outside any hospital, it would be anarchy."

The spokesman added that the vast majority of hospital users came to the hospital for a pre-arranged appointment or to see someone on the wards.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.