Report re Travel and parking issues at Northern General Hospital

Northern General Hospital Traffic and Parking Issues: Neighbourhood Impacts

Report to Burngreave Area Panel 12 June 2008

Background

This summary report forms the basis of the presentation to the Area Panel with regard to traffic and parking issues at the Northern General Hospital

Introduction

The NHS is the 3rd largest employer in the world. In Sheffield in April 2001 the central campus hospitals (RHH etc) amalgamated with the Northern General Hospital to create the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust (STH). At that time , it was the largest hospital trust in England (now second largest) and the second largest employer in Sheffield, employing 12,000+ employees, managing five hospitals carrying out over a million appointments and operations per year.

Parking Charges

In September 2006 STH created parity in parking charges across all their sites. This meant for the first time staff based at the Northern General Hospital (NGH) were required to pay to park, and at the same time the STH applied stricter criteria to gain a parking permit. This was seen as a step in the right direction in terms of the Trust reducing their travel and transport impact.

Why Charge for Parking?

There are national, regional and local policies – supported by the City Council, to reduce congestion, improve air quality, tackle health problems and reduce carbon footprints. This will only happen if there are attempts by organisations to level the playing field in terms of travel to/from work, as well as mitigating other travel impacts (e.g. visitors, out-patients, supplies etc).

A parking space does not come free. Regardless of construction cost, a space in a surface car park can cost between £400 - £800 to maintain per annum. A space in a multi storey can be anything up from £1000 to maintain. Therefore, staff who are allowed to park at zero cost are being rewarded, while staff who use public transport, cycle, or walk receive no reward. Car users are being subsidised. The cost of a parking permit for staff at the NGH are not massive - in the region of £200 per annum or less than £1 a day.

Car parking at the NGH is costing the Trust over £1,000,000 a year. They are not fully covering those costs from staff permit charges.

The result of introducing charges and new criteria

This resulted in a significant number of staff parking off site on Herries Road, Norwood Road, Barnsley Road and the Crabtree Estate. This caused serious access issues primarily for buses and refuse vehicles, but also for residents accessing drives, or simply walking along footways/pavements.

Buses were diverted away from Norwood Road, so the issue was affecting not only pedestrians in the area and car users, but also residents using the bus and staff and visitors to the hospital.

SCC and NGH Action

The initial issue of restricted access for buses and refuse vehicles along Norwood Road and Herries Road was improved by the implementation of a temporary traffic regulation order along Herries Road, and the west side of Norwood Road (Monday – Friday, 8.30 – 18.30). This kept one side free for parking and restricted parking through the day on the other. The bus operators are happy with the current situation.

At the same time the STH relaxed their parking permit criteria to allow on-site parking for all those who applied for a parking permit, while maintaining the charge.

To tackle the issue of resident drives being blocked, white H markings were laid down to reinforce the dropped kerb. This was jointly funded by the City Council and STH.

The Burngreave Area Panel considered this problem at he meeting in October 2006 and asked that it be considered as a priority by the relevant City Council Scrutiny Board. The trust were called in to Culture, Economy and Sustainability Scrutiny Board in November 2006, and agreed to participate in a liaison group co-ordinated by this Area Panel with residents and Sheffield City Council officers. To tackle the issue of pavement parking and obstruction, South Yorkshire Police were invited along to the Liaison group to explain what they could and could not do re: enforcement.

Problems still remain today with drives being blocked, cars parking with in private developments and footway parking.

Permit Parking Scheme

Progress is now being made in respect of rolling out permit schemes beyond the city centre peripheral parking zone. There is still a significant amount of work to be carried out.

The Hillsborough trials (agreed in November 2006) have not yet taken place and it will be approximately 18 to 24 months before the result will be known. As part of the City Council’s programme of developing permit parking schemes it will be some time before a scheme could be formally consulted on in the area around the NGH.

A local, indicative, consultation exercise is being conducted in the areas particularly affected by NGH related parking and will be reported at a later date.

The timescales for the implementation of a scheme has not been planned into any future budgets, therefore this particular scheme in terms of timescale is a number of years away.

However a scheme may be brought forward as part of the management of hospital parking and the development of the Multi Storey Car Park (MSCP).

Multi Storey Car Park proposal

NGH has had plans for a 900 space multi-storey car park for a number of years. A planning application was initially received on 3 March 2006. It has been submitted to cater for current demand from patients and visitors, and also to cope with increased development the hospital is planning.

It will also act as a subsidy for the much needed MSCP at Weston Park Hospital – which does have planning approval.

The MSCP is being built to accommodate patients and visitors only.

There has been ongoing discussion for two years focused around the application and supporting documents. STH travel and transport consultants have been informed of the requirements needed to satisfy the travel plan condition.

The planning application remains invalid, as the supporting information remains inadequate; primarily for the purpose of this report the site specific car park management strategy needs to be incorporated into the existing Trust travel plan. It looks hopeful that this will be addressed in the next fortnight.

Travel Plan

STH have produced a trust wide travel and transport strategy. This was received by SCC in the summer of 2006, discussed with the Liaison group in December 2006 and approved by the Trust Board in January 2007.

A site-specific plan is being developed to accompany the MSCP planning application.

A travel plan coordinator has been appointed and was due to commence employment on 9th June.

The Trust;

have improved the shuttle bus service between the Royal Hallamshire Hospital and the NGH. It runs on a half hour basis with a one small bus and one medium size bus, and often runs at capacity. Trust staff travel for free, and prices for visitors and the general public are competitive.

have developed a private group within the car share database carsharesouthyorkshire.com, this was launched in January 2008.

· hold regular Public Transport road shows for staff throughout the year.

· has carried out a staff travel survey the results of which show some promise as the number of vehicles accessing the site has dropped by 9% over a 4 year period. This equates to approximately 500 vehicles. The survey also highlighted that more than 200 staff park off site.

The trust can enhance the travel plan and with the new co-ordinator employed engage staff more actively, promote the measures they have implemented.

It is hoped that the Trust will learn form what others have done; for example Nottingham had similar if not the same issues, poor facilities for those not driving, poor security for those driving, 70 vehicles a month stolen, poor links between sites, lack of patient and visitor priority. All have been addressed over the last few years with commitment and a relatively small budget. Shuttle bus running a 10 minute frequency, buses entering the site, pedestrian priority on site, priority to patient and visitor car parking, improved public transport information, staff pay to park.

They can also look to their central campus neighbours - University of Sheffield - who had significant success with their travel plan reducing car use by 500 vehicles from a much lower number - 1900 to 1400.

Summary

Issues remain primarily a significant amount of off site parking affecting drives and footways.

A suitable parking solution needs to be found, the Trust have plans to manage their car park better, but if staff do not want to pay they will seek free spaces off site.

At the same time the travel plan will need more investment in terms of time and resources to reduce the number of vehicles accessing the site.

Recommendation

That the Area Panel receive this report and looks forward to a fuller report being presented to the Culture, Economy and Sustainability Scrutiny Board.

And notes that the chair of the Area Panel will be meeting with the Trust Chief Executive and Director of Development Services shortly to consider the issues raised in this report, presentation and discussion.

Paul Sullivan
Transport Planning

How useful is this page?

[ Comment On This Page? ]

Browsealoud |