PRIVATE FIRMS IN £1.8BN HOSPITAL PARKING BIDS
PPRIVATE firms are to bid for NHS car parking contracts worth £1.8billion. They range from pay and display machines and permit schemes to barrier controls and number plate recognition. The bumper contracts will reignite protests about huge profits made from the NHS by private parking firms.
One company, Parking Eye, made a £9.8million profit last year, up 49 per cent from 2016, stats show.
Unison’s Sara Gorton said: “Staff and patients can ill afford the excessive fees, and expect profits made to improve the facilities, not line the pockets of contractors.”
The Sunday Mirror has joined calls to scrap hospital car parking charges, which have already been abolished in Wales and Scotland. VETERANS pose proudly before taking to the skies as the UK’s first disabled air display team.
The trio marked 36 years since the death of RAF hero Douglas Bader on Wednesday.
Mike Wildeman, 56, Barry Hobkirk, 68, and Alan Robinson, 38, took off from Blackbushe, Surrey, as Bader’s Bus Company.
Bader lost his legs in a crash but was accepted as a pilot in the Second World War. He confirmed arriving over France saying: “Bader’s bus company on time.”
Grandson Charles Bickers said of the trio: “The Bader spirit is alive and well within them all.” But the NHS is drawing up a shortlist of preferred contractors.
Tory MP Robert Halfon is to deliver a petition with 26,000 signatures demanding an immediate end to hospital parking fees to Downing Street tomorrow.