Friday's Letters: Space shortage aggravating hospital's parking problem

After having to take my wife to the hospital on very many occasions in the last 20 years, I have seen how the car parking facilities have changed from being very good to a nightmare situation.

As one person said to me, "if you feel poorly before coming to hospital, you will feel a whole lot worse after trying to park".

Why has parking become the problem and why has the situation not been properly addressed and allowed to become so stressful?

The problem is easy to identify. Scarborough Hospital car park was only ever designed to serve one hospital.

Now it has to routinely accept patients from several hospitals.

Bridlington Hospital is now a hospital in name only with few responsibilities left, and with most patients who would have been accepted now transferred to Scarborough.

To a lesser extent, Whitby and Malton Hospitals have to send patients to Scarborough, resulting in all these additional visits overwhelming its car parking facilities.

Why didn't hospital managers anticipate these problems?

Many more parking spaces could be obtained easily and cheaply without having to purchase any extra land – if just a bit of proper planning had been done.

Scarborough Hospital car park is not a large open space like a supermarket car park but full of man-made obstacles.

Why not, as an interim measure, allow parking on all the grass verges by removing all the wooden stakes? These have only resulted in exacerbating the acute shortage of available parking spaces.

As for overstaying the time paid for, while visitors to in-patients know how much time they will stay, how are out-patients reasonably expected to know how long they will require?

If we see a consultant within half-an-hour of the appointment time, we consider ourselves fortunate as experience has taught us that a wait of between three-quarters of an hour or one hour is more realistic.

Then there is the time spent with the consultant and any visit to X-ray or to give blood samples.

No supermarket would cause parking problems for its customers by wasting so much available space; no supermarket would ever consider imposing swingeing 60 fines on its customers for overstaying their parking time when they had caused the delay, yet Scarborough Hospital finds treating the situation this way is perfectly reasonable.

From: Barrie Frost, Watson's Lane, Reighton, Filey.

Why we all need public libraries

From: Mr PJ Thomson, Kelly Street, Goldthorpe.

AFTER reading the letter from Peter Robson entitled "reading between the lines" (Yorkshire Post, January 19) I was prompted to make the following observations about the whole debate concerning the future of education.

In his opinion, "the closures of libraries are an act of cultural and educational vandalism".

There has always been a certain section of society that has believed that education was only for the privileged. The old adage that says "a little education can be a dangerous thing" comes to mind.

Some people did believe that to educate the masses would end up threatening their own superiority; dictators throughout history have attacked education as a means of controlling their populations.

Our politicians are more subtle in their attempts to achieve the same results – they just treble university tuition fees, do away with the EMA and try to stop the Books for Children scheme and close hundreds of libraries.

Our business competitors all over the globe give top priority to education, we neglect it at our peril.

From: Peter J Brown, Connaught Road, Middlesbrough.

POLITICIANS and successive governments pontificate about the need for radical reforms in the field of education.

Money is often spent on pupils and students who have no desire to be educated. Both the coalition government and previous Labour Government have had a desire to control schools and universities and control what is taught.

The attack on public libraries amounts to barbarism. Public libraries are open to all with a reasonable standard of literacy and who want to improve themselves.

In the IT age public libraries are more important than ever. People who do not want computers in their own homes or who are unable to afford them are able to use them in the public library.

I keep my computer in a very cold room. During the recent long spell of very cold weather I was so cold and uncomfortable that I couldn't take in anything from my computer. I did not enjoy using it at all.

The warmth of the public library was very welcome.

The Government is prepared to see libraries close because they are difficult for politicians and governments to control.

From: Anthony J Macauley, Burnmoor Crescent, Ingleton, Carnforth, Lancashire.

AM I alone in thinking North Yorkshire County Council has lost sight of reason and is out of touch with the community it serves for slashing basic services for vulnerable people?

Is it reasonable to ignore the results of public consultation and go ahead with closure of libraries? Or is this a demonstration of the council's contempt for the community?

I propose we express our total lack of confidence in this failed institution, ask competent members of the community, who are prepared to put the needs of the community first, to come forward for election, build and maintain a close working relationship between the council and communities whose needs are to be served, and cut the hugely excessive costs of running councils so they can get back to their prime purpose of providing high-quality essential services.

Councils must cease activities peripheral to their prime purpose. Councils can empower others.

Hunger threat facing Britain

From: Malcolm Rainforth, Southfield Avenue, Ripon.

IT is nearly February, and David Cameron and Nick Clegg have had many months running – or "ruining" – the country.

Fuel prices are going through the roof and we are importing more than exporting so the debt is growing.

I recall promises – promises that are now history – and also quangos that were going to be cut or swept away.

I note we have a shortage of wheat; it is no surprise to me at all with some of the schemes Natural England came up with.

When I started farming, in 1963, every inch of my land was farmed, either grass or arable, all doing what farmers should be doing – growing food.

Great Britain Ltd is going to go bust and hungry because we can't go on importing stuff. We can either grow or manufacture.

Cameron & Co are heading for a bigger mess than Brown & Co. Nothing has changed since the election. The same people are getting richer.

Advice for Sir Michael

From: Barbara Oehm, Jacaranda Avenue, Figtree, New South Wales, Australia.

I refer to Sir Michael Parkinson's recent astonishing remarks with regard to Australia becoming a republic.

Apparently, Sir Michael knows little about the constitutional arrangements of this country.

We enjoy a system of government that is second to none, encompassing the best of the British Westminster system and the best of the American system (Senate).

We are happy as it is.

Perhaps Sir Michael should attend to more rewarding issues in his life, now that he is no longer a TV star.

I suggest growing rhubarb in his Yorkshire backyard.

For and against Miliband's Cabinet changes

From: Roger M Dobson, Ash Street, Cross Hills, Keighley.

HAVING observed the appointments to the Shadow Cabinet by Ed Miliband, I am beginning to equate him to the poet Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud".

If I wanted someone to oversee the economy, I would appoint someone with more economic experience than that of an ex-postman, in Alan Johnson.

Now Ed Miliband has gone from the frying pan into the fire by appointing two of the most left-wing politicians in the country, husband-and-wife team Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper, to be Shadow Chancellor and Shadow Home Secretary respectively

Mr Balls appears to be of the same ilk as Alistair Darling, not really knowing what control of spending really is, while his dear wife appears to demonstrate so many left-wing ideas it cannot be true.

From: Brian Hardy, All Hallowes Drive, Tickhill, Doncaster.

CONTRARY to your report on Alan Johnson's resignation (Yorkshire Post, January 21), I do not believe it is a blow for Ed Miliband's leadership nor a setback for Labour.

Having Labour's number-one "attack" dog, Ed Balls, as Shadow Chancellor (a post he should have had from the beginning) is the only possible choice if Labour is serious about opposing this Tory-led Government.

In the past, Mr Balls has proved more than a match for anything the "Bullingdon Club" posh boys have to offer.

I suspect that in the near future the Chancellor, George Osborne, will have quite a lot of sleepless nights.

A long way from home...

From: David F Chambers, Sladeburn Drive, Northallerton.

I FEEL somehow diminished. Abruptly deflated. Just as I was beginning to feel that after 50 years' residence I could claim to have achieved some degree of Yorkshireness, I read Jayne Dowle's column (Yorkshire Post, January 24) and the blow fell. "Even my husband says that, and he is from Surrey," she says.

If the subject of my own Surrey origins ever arises, I try to make light of it and to steer the conversation away from Surbiton in particular.

But I see now that I can only struggle on, encouraged by many of those other Yorkshire immigrants, from places even more distant and obscure.

Invitation to join RAF association

From: David Taylor, chairman and Yorkshire liaison officer, RAF Seletar Association, Lower Darnborough Street, Clementhorpe, York.

DID you serve with the RAF in Singapore? One of the Royal Air Force's most colourful and historic overseas bases, Seletar, closed in 1971, but it is remembered with affection by members of the RAF Seletar/Tengah Association.

Formed in 1997, the intention is to reunite any personnel who served or were based at Seletar or Tengah in any capacity, service or civilian, including families of those who were based there.

Our newsletter, the Seletar Searchlight, is issued three times a year, and we have a database of more than 1,000 members.

Should any readers wish to join us, please contact 01904 612542 or email [email protected]

NHS proposal

From: Mrs M Pardon, Haywood Avenue, Huddersfield.

I FOUND the article by Dr Hamish Meldrum (Yorkshire Post, January 24) very interesting.

I find the Government's (and Andrew Lansley's) NHS proposals somewhat hair-raising.

I would like to see Sir Gerry Robinson placed in charge of the service.