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NEWS
THE SENTINEL Monday September 12, 2011
SEN-eO1-S2 [P]
Shoppers pay the price for not having exact money Meeting held ON MONDAY NEWS
PAGE 16: Fans pay tribute to Potters author
SPORT
BACK PAGE: No appeal over Vale skipper’s sending off
COMMENT
PAGE 10: ‘We just hope justice will favour Wedgwood’
LETTERS
PAGES 8&9: Same old songs are real turn-off
‘Confusing’ parking policy under review BY ALEX CAMPBELL alex.campbell@thesentinel.co.uk
A CAR park charging policy which deliberately short changes motorists is set to be scrapped to try to improve trade in town centres. Stoke-on-Trent City Council is reviewing parking charges at car parks which do not give motorists extra parking time if they pay more than the hourly charge. None of the city’s parking machines give change – but some award extra time for over-payment. For instance, it costs 80p to park for one hour at Kingsway, in Stoke. But if a motorist only has a £1 coin, the machine will credit the over-payment with 15 minutes extra parking time. At some other car parks – including Tower Square, in Tunstall, and city centre car parks – the only way to get more parking time is to pay the exact amount for the next hourly payment. Now the policy is under review – just six months after consultant Buchanan’s recommended scrapping so-called proportional payment because it was “confusing”. Tunstall councillor Lee Wanger, whose complaints prompted the council’s review, said: “As a fundamental point, people should get what they pay for at car parks and not be making donations to the council just because they haven’t got the correct change. “There is inconsistency. On some car parks the payments are proportional, but not on others. “In those that aren’t, the council could be open to a challenge if someone has put extra money in the machine but is given a ticket because it hasn’t given them extra time.” It costs 90p to park at Tower Square for an hour. Trader Marion Taylor, manager at Wrights, in Tower Square, said: “If the
BUSINESS
KINGSWAY (80p an hour): The motorist has been credited with an extra 30 minutes parking after putting in £1.20. council changes the rules then it could be helpful for trade. “The traffic wardens come up several times each day and give out tickets. Sometimes they are here three or four times a day and it puts people off. “And then they wonder why shops are having to close down. “Hopefully it will help get more people to stay a bit longer.” Latest figures show the council took £813,106 from parking charges between April and June this year, almost £150,000 less than the same period in 2010. It has led to projections that the council will make £384,000 less than it expected by the end of March. Councillor Janine Bridges, cabinet member for City Services, said: “We got rid of proportional payment on the advice of Buchanan’s but there doesn’t seem any rhyme or reason to this.
“We’re having another look at proportional payment, or parking charges per minute, so you’ll pay for however long you’re there. “We want to encourage people to stay longer. If we’re charging per minute, people will know they have the option of staying longer. “It is being reviewed. We’re taking concerns on board.”
Are the current parking rules fair? Email us at letters@thesentinel.co.uk
TOWER SQUARE (90p an hour): The motorist only gets one hour of parking for £1.20 instead of an hour and 20 minutes.
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Print and redeem the voucher at www.thisis staffordshire.co.uk/vouchers For permission to copy cuttings, contact the NLA, 7 Church Road, Tunbridge Wells, TN1 1NL, telephone 01892 525273, email copy@nla.co.uk
PLANS to close a century-old hospital and transform mental health services were due to be discussed at a public meeting today. NHS Combined Healthcare officials were holding their latest consultation meeting at North Staffordshire Conferences, in Hartshill, this mor ning. They are consulting over the future of the area’s mental health services until October 28. The proposed changes include: ■ Closing Bucknall Hospital; ■ Transferring dementia services from Bucknall to Harplands Hospital; ■ Improving community teams to help older people, who occasionally feel mentally or emotionally unwell, in their own homes. NHS Combined Healthcare wants to sell off the 12-acre Bucknall Hospital site which costs £1.5 million-a-year to run. Four hundred staff work at the hospital. NHS official Andy Donald said: “This consultation is about providing accessible, high-quality services which meet the needs of service users in the right location at the right time. “These proposed changes will not reduce or curtail a patients’ choice about what care they receive and where.” A further consultation meeting will be held at Bentilee Neighbourhood Centre, in Bentilee, from 1pm to 3pm on Monday, October 10. FUNERAL: Former Stoke-onTrent City Council member Dave Sutton.
Final farewell for councillor THE funeral was taking place today of a former councillor. Dave Sutton died at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire on Monday, August 29. The 61-year-old, of Abbey Hulton, had developed epilepsy after suffering a stroke in September last year. Dave had been a councillor on Stoke-on-Trent City Council for eight years from 2003, serving voters in the Tunstall ward and in Northwood and Birches Head. He had failed to win election to the Goldenhill and Sandyford ward in this May’s local elections. Dave had also served as a governor at primary schools in Bucknall and Northwood. His funeral was being held at Carmountside Crematorium at 2.30pm today.
PAGE 23: Clothing firm kits out cycling stars
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over plans to close hospital
New health organisation ‘will keep people out of hospital’ A NEW NHS body formed in Staffordshire to take over community health services from the primary care trusts will be a trigger for helping more ill people live independently outside hospitals, according to patients’ leaders. The Staffordshire and Stoke-onTrent Partnership NHS Trust brings together direct patient services
formerly run by the county’s three PCTs which will be abolished in two years’ time under Government health care reforms. The Newcastle-based organisation with 5,000 staff caring for a 1.1 million population provides services in peoples’ homes, nursing homes and community hospitals – and its role will
be key to keeping patients out of the University Hospital of North Staffordshire and Stafford Hospital. Pat Roberts, one of its patient council members, said: “I see the new organisation as the catalyst for all other services ensuring that a patient remains independent whether that is in their own home or in a nursing or
care home. This will avoid unnecessary hospital admissions and ultimately provide value for money for patients. “The development of an independent provider like this should bring benefits to patients, acting as the connection between all health services, helping to pull everything together.”