Royal Shrewsbury Hospital staff may be asked to use park and ride
Staff at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital could be asked to use park and ride buses to get to work – to help stop cars clogging up nearby residential streets.
Bosses at the hospital on Mytton Oak Road are looking at plans to ferry staff to work on buses to free up parking spaces on site.
It comes after complaints staff and patients are parking on residential streets near the hospital, rather than on-site, to avoid charges.
Councillor Peter Nutting, Shropshire councillor for Copthorne, said Swiss Farm Road in particular was badly affected – with residents blocked into their drives.
He added the number of vehicles parked on Swiss Farm Road was also blocking buses.
Councillor Nutting put the problem down to a lack of space on the RSH site.
"The problem is partly due to a shortage of staff parking at the hospital and therefore some staff choose to leave their cars in nearby residential areas but also because, in the afternoons between 2pm and 4pm, the visitor car parks at the hospital are jam-packed and there simply is nowhere for cars to be parked on site.
"It is likely to get worse with the introduction of increased parking charges at the hospital, an increase in workload from more day surgery and a rise in students at the college."
Today, bosses at the trust said they were in talks with Shropshire Council about using park and ride, including the Oxon service which runs from Welshpool Road, to free up parking space at the RSH.
John Ellis-Tipton, estates manager for environment at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said: "One of the things we said we would look at during the consultation process around travel and transport was the possibility of using existing off-site park and ride facilities to help free up the capacity on our hospital sites.
"This is something we are still considering and in discussion with the local authority about."
