No person should pay for hospital car parks
IN response to your article (M.E.N. October 19) on the money raised by hospital trusts from charging staff to park, my view is that no-one should have to pay to park in hospital car parks.
Everybody who is at the hospital is either there for work, attending an appointment, or visiting a friend or relative who is an in-patient at the hospital. No-one is there for fun.
My friend had a hip replacement which did not go according to plan so spent four out of six weeks in different hospitals. Daily parking costs while visiting her - a minimum of £3.50 - soon mounted up.
My daughter’s partner recently fractured two vertebrae so she spent around eight hours per day with him, incurring significant parking costs, which was on top of the cost of her daily 60-plus miles round trip to the hospital.
While both my daughter and I could have found other more enjoyable ways to spend money, we are in the fortunate position of being able to pay those parking fees without difficulty.
However, I know that for some people, frequently paying for hospital parking would make a significant dent in their disposable income, possibly causing hardship.
Whilst I would be among the first to admit that the NHS is struggling due to a severe lack of underfunding, attempts to make up the shortfall should not become the burden of its hard-working staff who are helping it to survive or patients and their visitors.
We all benefit from the NHS in different ways, so hospitals should not be put in a position where they need to charge anybody who has to attend the hospital for whatever reason. Elizabeth Barber
Sad if store does close
I ALONG with many am gutted to read of the future closure of the House of Fraser store that I remember as Kendal Milnes.
When I left school in 1957, aged 15, I went to work in Manchester where I spent a lot of my working life.
At that age I was in awe of Kendal Milnes that I saw as a ‘posh’ store where chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce cars used to drop off ladies’ dressed in their fur coats and giving their instructions to “collect me at 3pm” before going into the store obviously to lunch on the fifth floor.
The waitresses there wore black uniforms with white frilly pinafores and white frilly caps. I’m sure if this was reinstated it would be patronised as not everyone wants to dine in a fast food outlet.
In St Ann’s Square there was a Kardoma coffee shop and when you walked past you could smell the coffee beans that were displayed in baskets in the window - what a change from the likes of Starbucks.
King Street has seen many changes over the years, this too used to be THE place to shop.
Internet shopping is not the only reason for shops closing down, the high parking charges and rates have been crippling the retail trade for a long time.
If the council had the foresight to see what was going to happen, they would have reduced the council rates a long time ago.
If they halved the rates for say five years this would give the shops the much needed boost they require, especially when the Christmas Markets appear and take some of their trade.
It’s amazing that the council can find £1.2m towards improving the public spaces of Lincoln Square and Brazennose Street, what good will that do if it doesn’t get the footfall when more shops and restaurants start to close.
As the saying goes: “A noisy tenant is better than an empty house.”
I really hope this iconic store can be saved for future generations to enjoy. Ann Bannister
Not good for mums-to-be
I SEE that Prince Harry’s wife, the Duchess of whatever, has been advised to give a swerve to areas of Fiji and Tonga to avoid possible contact with the Zika virus.
Presumably, it’s OK for women who live there to be exposed to the risk whilst pregnant though? David Christer, Timperley
Best use of a police car?
I READ in the newspaper recently a letter stating that police say they cannot pursue certain crimes due to a lack of resources, yet we read that TV’s Fiona Bruce can be taken to some studio in a police car because traffic was at a standstill. This beggars belief. It seems to me yet again that its one rule for one and another rule for others. M Smith, Middleton