It is not alone – the University Hospital of North Durham and the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough are no better. Indeed, the road system at James Cook is locked down when the air ambulance lands on a mound nearby so you are stressing about being late for an appointment because you can’t find a parking space and then you are stressing that the road is shut so you can’t even get into the car park to find you can’t get a space. It would be fascinating to know if appointments are missed because of the parking difficulties or if those difficulties are so well known that people factor them in and prepare themselves for a long walk, if they are able.
Therefore, it is the elderly and the disabled who are most inconvenienced by the parking issues, although people living in the streets around may well argue that they are permanently inconvenienced by people parking where they shouldn’t. What to do? If the NHS cannot find the money to rebuild hospitals like North Tees that are reaching the end of their economic lives, it seems unlikely that it will have the cash to build several multi-storeys, even if the car parks will, over time, become revenue earners. A parking management plan may improve the problems around the margins but seems unlikely to massively increase capacity, as is needed.
So is a park-and-ride scheme using a field out beyond Mowden a realistic solution, or are all those fields earmarked for housing estates?.
