Scrap hospital parking charges

Coventry Socialist Party press release

Coventry Socialist Party is handing over a massive petition to the Labour council and NHS board. The Coventry Socialist Party petition to end parking charges at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire has passed 15,000 signatures, as car park profits soar to £9.7 million. 

Adam Harmsworth, the petition’s organiser, said: “These signatures have mainly been collected by the Socialist Party campaigning almost every week across the city. Petition sheets have been taken into local workplaces to collect signatures, including hospital wards. We also gained 760 signatures on change.org.”

On 24 March, we presented our petition to a full meeting of the city council, calling on councillors to support the campaign, and use their position to demand change.

It was handed in by Your Party councillor Grace Lewis. She spoke in favour in the council chamber. And on 2 April, at 9am, we will present our petition to the next hospital board meeting.

Coventry Socialist Party has been campaigning for years to end the parking charges at the hospital. The car park is run by ISS Facilities, under a privatised PFI contract.

The overhead costs of running the car park were just £425,582. But ISS made £9.7 million profit on top.

Adam added: “We have spoken to thousands of people who are disgusted with the parking charges at our hospital. We have met patients and visitors who have struggled with the costs, including relatives of terminally ill patients, who have been forced to cut short the time they have left with their loved ones.

“We have met staff who struggle with the costs, especially combined with their low wages. Some told us they quit working at the hospital because it was cheaper to take a pay cut and work elsewhere.”

Staff without a pass, working just three shifts a week, would pay £2,106 every year. A staff pass costs £684 a year, still a horrendous price to park at your own workplace.

There is no excuse to make profit from a hospital car park, especially in a cost-of-living crisis. We, and the 15,000 who have signed our petition, demand the PFI contract is ended, and the hospital car park is made free of charge. This is the case already in most of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We encourage the hospital trade unions to note the public support for this demand and take it up as part of their industrial campaigns. A combative approach by the unions could force an end to the PFI contract and to the charges at the hospital car park.