Inverclyde Royal: Campaigner hits out over disabled parking problems

The Telegraph recently told how hospital chiefs were being urged to take action against people without blue badges parking in disabled spots at the infirmary.

NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde responded to the calls to tackle the problem and said that they were in talks with Inverclyde Council about the possibility of implementing a traffic regulation order, which would allow community wardens to enter the car park and ticket drivers breaking the rules.

But former provost Ciano Rebecchi, a long term activist on IRH issues, has now hit out at officials and accused them of taking too long to fix the issue.

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Mr Rebecchi, who stepped down as a councillor last year, told the Telegraph he has spent years trying to get health board bosses to let council officers into their car parks.

He said: “All we were wanting was permission for our guys to go in there and deal with it.

“The council were willing to work with them and they haven’t done it.

“The complaints started again about three or four years ago, but you’re always getting people complaining.

“The health board isn’t bothering, it’s the least of their worries.

“If it was affecting one of their relatives it’d be different.”

Mr Rebecchi also issued a call last year for the health board to get a move on and tackle the problem.

He said at the time that the council had already agreed to deploy community wardens to monitor the situation and that he'd been campaigning for the issue to be addressed for more than a year.

He added: “You have to ask why they are taking so long when the council were willing to work together.

“They could even give it a trial to see how it would work.

“Once they put it in and word gets out that people are being fined for parking there that would have a knock-on effect and stop them parking [in disabled spaces].

“At the moment they know they can park here and not give a damn, they know they’ll [the health board] do nothing.

“When you know there’s a problem with blue badges surely you put a scheme in place.

“Why are we still sitting here years later with nothing done about it? It’s not good enough.”

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In response to Mr Rebecchi’s comments, a health board spokesperson said: “We want to ensure that patients and visitors are able to park when attending hospital.

“Unfortunately, there are occasions when this is difficult due to inconsiderate parking. 

“This is an issue that we keep under close review and as part of this we have re-engaged with the Inverclyde Council to discuss the possibility of implementing a Traffic Regulation Order which will allow the local authority wardens to ticket inappropriately parked vehicles. 

“In the meantime, the local facilities team are committed to providing additional resource to help monitor and control access to blue badge spaces and during peak times staff are on site to support patients who require blue badge parking spaces.

“We are also in the process of identifying a dedicated resource to monitor blue badge spaces and discourage inappropriate parking in disabled bays.”