Parking victory for General Hospital Neighbours
March 18th 2010
Alan Whitehead has welcomed new moves to improve parking provision around the General Hospital.
After a long campaign by Alan Whitehead and local Labour Councillors, the hospital has agreed to build a new multi-storey staff car park on the hospital grounds, capable of holding 700 vehicles. This should significantly reduce parking pressure on nearby residential roads.
Dr Whitehead has also campaigned for years with local residents to improve parking protection around St James Park Road, which is one of the few roads near to the General Hospital which does not benefit from some form of residential parking protection.
Yesterday the City Council finally agreed to introduce parking protection measures into those roads.
Alan Whitehead and Coxford Labour Councillors ran a major survey on parking provision around the General Hospital in 2005, and have been campaigning for improvements in parking arrangements since then. Labour has so far helped deliver:
- improvements in parking with alterations in waiting time in some areas;
- the extension of residents parking schemes;
- improvements in the park & ride scheme operating at the hospital;
- secure lock-ups for personal cycles at the hospital,
- a car-sharing scheme amongst hospital staff;
- making sure there are bus drop-off points at all the main hospital entrances.
Dr Whitehead said:
“This is great news for people living near the General Hospital. We’ve been working with local residents to improve both parking protection measures and parking provision within the Hospital, and I’m pleased there has been such excellent progress on both fronts over the last month.
“There is still clearly a long way to go though. Labour will continue to campaign for improvements to parking measures around the hospital, an expansion to the hospital’s park and ride service, and sustained investment in local bus services.
“And we will oppose the calls of the leader of Southampton Conservatives to end free bus travel for pensioners, which, leaving aside how difficult it would make it for many pensioners to get to the hospital, would also dramatically increase parking congestion around the site.”
What do you think about this story? Email Alan