WHEN the proposal to make hospital workers pay to park was first mooted last year we derided the idea as both unworkable and unthinkable.

For hard-working staff at the Royal to be forced out of their cars and made to suffer the vagaries of public transport was not, we said, acceptable.

The prospect of hanging around bus stops in the early hours of the morning after a long and stressful shift is not one that nurses or any other members of staff should have to face.

In its wisdom, the NHS Trust has decided that, if workers don't wish to use public transport, they can get on their bikes.

So, it has decided to offer "interest-free loans" to staff who wish to purchase a bicycle.

A loan being something you have to pay back, of course.

So, if you're a vital health worker in a stressful job at one of the county's three main hospitals you have the choice of either catching a bus - assuming, that is, that you have access to one - borrowing some money to pay for a bike and pedalling your way to work, or paying up to £500 a year for the privilege of being able to drive there.

Of course it is highly laudable for staff to be encouraged to take alternative forms of transport.

But to charge them while they are at work is utterly wrong.

In the case of the Royal, the idiotic piece of planning that has meant far too few car parking spaces should not force the Trust into enforcing a regulation that will have such a detrimental effect on morale.

Whatever the solution to this problem, it is not the staff that should be made to suffer.