"No evidence" town workers are abusing PEH car park

Thursday 15 March 2018

Guernsey's hospital porters say they have not seen anything to suggest people are parking at the PEH before walking to town to work in offices and shops there.

There are plans to create an additional 83 parking spaces, near the Oberlands entrance to the hospital complex, but some service users have said that will not address one of the problems behind the congestion.

A number of people have claimed they have seen people doing so, in response to an article posted by Express earlier this week. Nikki Becker commented "There is a big problem in the upper car park with non-hospital parking - there are cars which rarely move and I have seen many times people park, then walk off in the direction of town" while Syd Lee simply said: "how about people stop using it as a park and ride?"

Porters employed by Health and Social Care to work at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital are tasked with monitoring the car park among their many other duties. In response to questions from Express HSC said: "Porters monitor the parking on the PEH campus on a daily basis. There is no evidence to suggest that town workers regularly use the hospital car park before walking to their offices."

The porters are able to issue fixed penalty notices to parking offenders and HSC added: "our porters work closely with both staff and service users to manage the parking. Where parking infringements are found they will ask for vehicles to be moved in the first instance."

In a previously released statement HSC admitted that pressure on car parking spaces at the hospital is a recognised issue and the Committee has been "actively working on the challenges around parking for many years" with "a number of initiatives" intended to ease pressure on parking across the site. HSC admitted it is sometimes "extremely difficult to park" there.

The majority of the spaces are used by patients and visitors with allocated staff parking. HSC confirmed to Express it also has an arrangement with neighbours for overnight and weekend parking:

"This also applies to staff that live in Key Worker housing at the top of Ruette Braye.  Again this is closely monitored by our Porters who ensure that they are off site at the agreed times i.e. when the site is generally most busy between 8 am and 5pm."

HSC has also confirmed vehicles are sometimes abandoned on the PEH campus. The Committee said this is always quickly dealt with, but sometimes this means extra costs are incurred by HSC:

"When this happens HSC liaises with the Police to ensure the proper procedure is followed to arrange removal – this involves contacting the registered owner and requesting it be removed in the first instance. If the registered owner can be contacted they are required to pay for the removal – otherwise HSC has to pay the fee charged."