FOR many years, voluntary community transport groups, some registered charities, have been provided with passes to assist when taking patients to hospital appointments at Castle Street, Ronkswood and Newtown sites.

Such groups have been informed that they will not be issued with parking passes for the foreseeable future for the new hospital, which is perceived to be connected with parking problems at the new site.

It would appear that many of these community groups are being advised by the PFI Project Co-ordination section at the Acute Trust that the main reason why insufficient parking space was built in at the planning stage was that the county council would not allow it.

This in turn was due to fact that the Government would not permit this under its Rural Transport initiative to reduce car use and encourage car-sharing and so on.

It is unclear what is referred to here, but I understand from senior staff at the county's Transport and Road Safety Dept that they may be referring to a proposed change in the format to calculate the required number of parking spaces for commercial, leisure or other and development from the minimum to the maximum parking standards.

There is discretion when dealing with out-of-town sites with poor transport links compared with inner city ones with good links. Hospitals are exempt.

WENDY HANDS,

Upton upon Severn.