Plan to cut hospital parking fees

Hospital parking fees will be reduced in the next few months

Car parking fees for cancer and day patients at hospitals in Newcastle are to be reduced, it has been announced.

The new charges will come into effect over the next few months at Newcastle General and Freeman hospitals, and the Royal Victoria Infirmary.

Currently patients pay £8 a day or £13.30 for 24 hours' parking.

But under the move cancer patients, who often have to go to hospital every day for weeks, will pay £3.30 per day. The 24-hour charge will fall to £7.70.

Faye Scullion, of Macmillan Cancer Support, welcomed the move. She said: "Patients are under tremendous pressure.

"It's not just the patients attending every day for weeks for cancer treatment but also their relatives - so they are under tremendous financial pressure when it comes to parking. This is good news."

Disabled bays

Paul Brewis, operational services manager for Newcastle Hospitals Trust, said: "We've been able to take time and look at how the car parking management arrangements are working, and we've taken the view that we can revise our charges, and we've done so this year.

"The key thing is we have to maintain our income and try to meet our costs as best we can.

"The money we generate from car parking goes on the maintenance of the estate and on improvements. For example we have put in an extra 24 disabled bays at our hospitals.

"It is not profit making, that is not the intention at all - we have not made any money out of parking charges for a number of years."