£4,000 raised to help hospital workers contest parking fines
MORE than £4,000 has been raised to help staff fight outstanding parking fines at Wales’ largest hospital.
More than 70 University Hospital of Wales (UHW) employees have been landed with huge fines, plus court costs said to be between £26,000 and £29,000.
Sue Prior, of Taff Ely Parking Action Group, has been helping staff in their fight with parking enforcement firm Indigo.
Her JustGiving page is asking for £30,000 to pay for a legal appeal. She said donations were “amazing” and thanked everyone who had helped.
“It’s an awful situation,” said Ms Prior. “We want to see if it (an appeal) is viable and see how much it is likely to cost, because we are talking thousands. Indigo is a huge company. It’s depressing because it is so much bigger than we thought and this is so unfair.”
But First Minister Carwyn Jones has said parking rules at UHW needed to be “properly enforced.”
The Welsh Labour leader claimed they were introduced after a death at the site.
Ms Prior disputes this and called Mr Jones’ comments “disgusting” and “untrue.”
“The staff are scared and petrified for their jobs,” she said. “It looks like the health board have a list of all the staff with court claims.”
She claims there are 8,500 permits for 2,000 spaces at the site, and said the average bill for those affected is more than £900.
And it is now feared other staff could face action over outstanding tickets.
It is also understood former Welsh Health Secretary Mark Drakeford wrote to his successor, Vaughan Gething, about the case last month, expressing concern about “the reputational risk to the NHS both locally and nationally.”
Mr Drakeford also wrote to Maria Battle, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board chairwoman.
“My understanding is that at this stage 84 county court claims are being treated together as test cases,” he wrote. “If these cases are lost Indigo Parking Services UK Ltd have the potential of gaining in excess of £140,000 from UHW staff.
“However, Indigo’s solicitor Wright Hassall is currently appealing to ask for the cases to be fasttracked, which takes the trials away from the small claims court, and increases the potential liability for the UHW staff. Should the staff lose they could then be made liable for perhaps as much as a further £20,000 in costs.”
Last week the Welsh Government said UHW had to “maintain safe traffic flow and parking arrangements”.
“This includes taking action on illegal and unsafe parking,” a spokesman said.
To donate visit www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/nhsvindigo