THE cost of parking at Worcester's Royal Hospital is set to rise "significantly", according to a hospital trust director, sparking fury from patients.

Spaces at the £95m hospital, which opened last year, is already limited, forcing patients to rely upon public transport if they want to make appointments on time.

Coun Colin Beardwood, a non-executive director of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, revealed the trust's intentions at a Worcestershire County Council cabinet meeting this week, as councillors discussed the future of the city's park-and-ride project.

"The hospital's policy is to make parking prices significantly higher," he said. "The park-and-ride will get totally swamped by hospital traffic. It goes against the principal of serving the city centre. It would be utterly disastrous."

A spokesman for the acute trust said plans to increase charges later this year would be detailed in the near future.

The site has suffered major problems with parking since it opened last March.

At last month's trust board meeting, acute trust non-executive director Chris Nicholls said Worcestershire Royal Hospital was "an absolute disaster area" when it came to parking.

Trust chairman Michael O'Riordan said the car park size had been limited by planning guidelines.

"We've worked to the planning limits," he said. "We're looking to see how we might get more parking provision by re-directing traffic movement."

Brian Clifton, chairman of Worcester Community Health Council - the patients' watchdog - was also against the increase.

"The prices are already as much as people would expect to pay," he said. "If parking prices are being put up just to deter people from parking here, it will be bad for public relations."

Charges now are £1 for up to four hours, £2 for eight and £3 for 24 hours.

One hospital visitor, 66-year-old Victor Hill, of Malvern, thought it was disgusting that visitors had to pay at all.

"I had an appointment yesterday, and we parked in the city and got a bus to come here," he said.

He said green areas should be dug up to create more parking space.