Date published: 2005/03/01
The Cambridge Evening News says:
Staff who park at Cambridge's Addenbrooke's Hospital have been hit by higher parking charges.
The cost of parking will rise in April by 66 per cent - from 60p a day to £1.
Hospital worker Richard Grenfell was shocked to discover a sign stuck on the car park gates telling staff of the change.
"They have been increasing the charges by about 10p per year for the last few years -but this is a huge increase," he said.
"I can understand why they are doing it as they are trying to encourage people to use the park and ride buses.
"I think it will push a lot of cars on to the side roads and will not succeed in decreasing congestion around the hospital."
Dr Wyn Hughes, service development manager at Addenbrooke's, said staff parking changes were first announced in January 2004 and have been discussed with union representatives.
He said the reason for increasing charges was to encourage staff to use other methods of travelling to the hospital.
A year or two ago the Addenbrooke's managers were moaning that it was hard to get staff to work there, and conveniently blamed it on the high price of housing in Cambridge. Perhaps they ought to have looked closer to home. If you treat your staff like this then they won't want to work for you. Hint for the bosses: the best way to get to the hospital for most people (staff and customers) is by car. Remember, the customer is always right and your staff are always right. Repeat three times.
There is plenty of space for car parking on the Addenbrooke's site, only the Cambridge ruling elite have decided not to provide it. Mary Archer, the Addenbrooke's Trust chair, blames this on the city politicians not allowing more parking. But if the Addenbrooke's management wanted to do something about it they could force the city to stop being idiotic, and so since they do nothing we can only assume the management does not want to do anything about it except blame their staff (and customers).
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