PARKING charges at Barnsley Hospital will go up by 66 per cent for staff and 23 per cent for visitors when new tariffs are introduced next week.
Hospital employees had been paying 75p-a-day to use staff car parks but will now be forced to shell out £1.25 under the new measures.
Visitors and outpatients can expect prices to rise from £1.30 to £1.75 for between one and two hours and £2 to £2.50 for three to four hour stays.
Union bosses accused the NHS trust of using staff parking charges to finance the planned £500,000 new car park at Helensburgh Close, Pogmoor.
GMB representative Martin Jackson said the price hikes would add to the existing problems at the hospital. "I think staff will be even more reluctant to pay the charges so this will further add to the congestion that's already around the hospital," he said.
Coun Peter Middleton, whose ward covers the area, said he would have thought the new car park could have been paid for out of the profits from the existing car parks.
"I can't believe all the money they are currently getting from parking is spent on administering it and paying Chubb (the company which runs the car park). They must have accumulated a lot of money, but nobody can seem to get to the bottom of it.
A Barnsley hospital spokesman said the increases were due to the 'increasing costs of providing parking' and said the hospital 'was determined not to subsidise parking at the expense of patient care.'
