I AM lodging an appeal against an extension to a hospital parking scheme which is already causing traffic chaos and can only add to the problems.
I cannot blame residents who live around Hillingdon Hospital objecting to patients parking in their streets. However, to throw an exclusion zone about a mile in diameter around the hospital is hardly the answer.
Staff are having to compete with patients for the rapidly diminishing number of car park spaces as a result
My over-riding concern is that the hospital appears to be viewed as a detriment rather than an asset to the neighbourhood.
Everyone is a NIMBY at heart, but we must live in the real world.
Services are required and it cannot be everyone else's responsibility to support this.
A secondary concern is that both hospitals and councils are using the situation as a means to raise revenues - it is the general public once again that suffers. I know I am fighting a difficult corner, but someone should.
Here is a copy of my letter to the Traffic Department at Hillingdon Council: I WISH to make a formal objection to the proposed extension of the Hillingdon Hospital parking scheme
The points I would like to make: 1. Councillors Jenkins and Burrows, Hillingdon Council, residents living in the neighbourhood of the hospital and other proponents of this scheme appear to have overlooked one very important point: the hospital exists to serve the needs of the residents of Hillingdon.
The healthcare services it provides for the people of this borough appear largely to be disregarded within this scheme.
I read with astonishment the January cabinet decision sheet stating there was a 'high level of satisfaction' with the existing parking scheme.
Who was canvassed? There has been unmitigated chaos around the hospital since its inception and great inconvenience caused for many. 2. Imposition of the existing exclusion zone overlooked many issues and so further problems were created. People do not come to the hospital for a day's outing; they are patients, visitors and staff.
While there is a reasonable bus connection to the hospital from various parts of the borough, there will always be a requirement for people to use cars as their mode of transport.
Infirmity,job requirements, unsocial hours or distance are all valid reasons for electing to use the car as opposed to public transport. 3. To ease the situation caused by patients and visitors being unable to use street parking within reasonable reach, the designated staff car parks were opened for everyone's use.
Hillingdon staff car parking unit, who carefully controlled the allocation of staff car parking permits, are now reduced to selling tickets to staff who are then unable to use them when they arrive for work. 4. The hospital applied to build a multi-storey car park.
This was rejected by the previous London mayoral administration who determined that everyone must use public transport.
The result of remorselessly pursuing this objective is daily seen in the atrocious traffic jams and pollution in Pield Heath Road, caused by long lines of cars waiting to enter one of the already full parking areas. 5. A close examination of the streets in the surrounding square mile show the vast majority of residences have designated parking areas, or driveways and garages.
Many householders themselves are absent throughout the 9am-5pm period, with their cars being driven elsewhere.
Like all drivers,I would prefer there to be less parked cars in my own area and I am restricted under the Wembley parking scheme. However cars are a fact of life.
Hillingdon already has ways of tackling illegal parking.
Consequently, resident's concerns about aesthetics or badly parked cars should not be regarded as paramount. 6. Hillingdon residents would be the first to complain if their operations were cancelled because staff couldn't manage to get to the hospital, or ambulances were stuck out-side in queuing traffic.
I think it is a duty of this committee to take a wider view of the situation.
The existing situation is not sustainable and new proposals are under consideration which will worsen it yet further.
Hillingdon Council must surely work with the hospital car parking management and arrive at a sensible compromise proposal that is acceptable to the residents and hospital users alike.
CHRIS QUEEN, project manager, IT department,
The Hillingdon Hospital Trust, Pield Heath Road,
Hillingdon.
