Appeal for motorists to park with care

Hospital bosses want drivers to uses official spaces

Health bosses were this week urging motorists to park ‘ appropriately’ after complaints about parking chaos at Ayr Hospital.

NHS Ayrshire & Arran this week appealed for drivers to help to keep the grounds as safe as possible for patients, visitors and staff.

The car parks at University Hospitals Ayr and Crosshouse have designated short and long stay areas which are clearly signposted.

The short stay car parks have a time limit of three hours and the long stay car parks are for people who need to park for longer than three hours.

When the car parking scheme was first implemented, there was a significant improvement in parking behaviours. However, this has not continued.

John Wright, director for corporate support services, said: “Over the past few years we have carried out surveys and audits of the car parks at University Hospitals Ayr and Crosshouse and created more than 400 new spaces across both sites. However, we have now reached the limit of the number of new car parking spaces we can build. We are, therefore, asking for help from members of the public.

“We need to make sure that we all play our part in parking appropriately and safely in all of our car parks across all of our sites. This will help traffic to flow better, reduce the risk of accidents and ensure that we comply with health and safety regulations.”

Mr Wight is urging motorists to: park only in a designated parking bay and do not park on footpaths, or at road junction

He urged drivers notto park in disabled parking spaces if you do not have a blue badge

Mr Wright said people can help reduce congestion at car park by travelling to the hospital by public transport or car share.

He added: “We know that parking is challenging on our sites, particularly at University Hospitals Ayr and Crosshouse.

“However, we are limited to the number of spaces we have and this is why we are urging the public and our staff to help us and to park appropriately. We will also be looking at other ways of reducing the volume of traffic on our sites at particular times of the day.”