NHS Tayside considers plans to ease parking woes at Ninewells

Congestion: Proposals include staff pool cars and relocating services

NHS Tayside hopes moving more services into the community will help alleviate long-running parking problems at Dundee’s flagship hospital.

Under the proposal, more procedures would take place outside Ninewells as the health board moves away from centralising services.

Other measures could include introducing pool cars for hospital staff, “greener travel”, a new park-and-ride system and curtailing further development at the existing site.

Locals have complained about the number of staff and visitors who park in neighbouring streets in order to avoid parking charges or due to overspill.

A cross-party group of councillors met with NHS Tayside’s chief operating officer Lorna Wiggin and head of property Mark Anderson yesterday to discuss their concerns.

West End councillor Richard Mccready said: “There are real issues

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The discussions centred around providing more services in the community. COUNCILLOR RICHARD MCCREADY

around the continued centralisation of services and whether more of these can be done elsewhere,” he said.

“The discussions centred around providing more services in the community but I think there are also questions to be asked around enforcement – particularly in residential areas.

“I think it is quite ridiculous really that they are now talking about moving services away from Ninewells when the health board have spent however many years moving them in.”

Councillor Donald Hay said he asked how the proposals would be carried out in practice and was told the health board would likely look to use specialist nurses.

However, he claims Ms Wiggin stopped short of saying whether these would be funded by the community hubs themselves or through funding allocated to the hospital.

Baillie Fraser Macpherson – who also attended the meeting – said the health board had pledged to carry around a “site masterplan” over the next 12 to 24 months in a bid to better understand how services affect parking demand.

Ms Wiggin said NHS Tayside is in the “early stages of developing a site masterplan which will look at long-term development opportunities at Ninewells”. “As part of this we will consider car parking, green spaces and pedestrian access,” she said.

dhealey@thecourier.co.uk

Picture: Gareth Jennings. Hospital car park overspill often means staff and visitors leave their vehicles in nearby residential streets.