STAFF at Andover’s hospital will soon have to pay for parking, the NHS trust have said.

It comes as Hampshire Hospitals NHS Trust, who run Andover, Basingstoke and Winchester hospitals, release their future transport plan, saying that they want to expand park and ride services at their site.

They’d also like to promote cycling to work, IT investment to support working at home, more staff car-sharing schemes and minibus schemes for staff.

The Trust says that the parking charges are a “last resort” to facilitate these schemes.

Julie Maskery, chief operating officer at Hampshire Hospitals, said: “The decision to introduce charges for staff parking on site is one which we have taken as a last resort and only following extensive engagement on the issue.

“It’s no secret that our sites are difficult to park at, something which often causes significant disruption both to the trust, our patients and the local community.

“The difficulty is that as the number of patients accessing our services grows – as it has by 10 per cent this year alone – we have to increase staff to meet it.

“Given the location of and geography around our sites, there are no easy solutions and we simply cannot just build more spaces to meet demand.

“Instead we have to think differently.”

The Trust say that part of its revised transport plans come in their quest to combat climate change, and their commitment to be more sustainable in the future.

“In the long term we would like to see the vast majority of our staff and patients travel to our sites by a means other than a personal vehicle,” Julie added.

“Not only would this improve access to our facilities overall but it would significantly reduce our carbon footprint; something that we – like everyone else – simply have to do for the future of the planet.

“In the short term, this isn’t possible, but we can start to lay the groundwork for it. Our immediate priority is to ease congestion on site and improve the experience for our staff getting to work.”

  • Are you going to be affected by the introduction in parking charges? Get in touch by emailing ryan.evans@andoveradvertiser.co.uk.