Residents living near Bristol’s main hospital complex are giving away their visitor parking permits to NHS staff to make their lives easier.
People living in Kingsdown and the southern parts of Redland and Cotham, are coming together to donate the day parking permits for visitors that come as part of their Residents’ Parking Scheme to staff working at the University Hospitals Trust complex that includes the BRI, St Michael’s and the Children’s Hospital.
The new online method of signing up visiting cars has made the task even easier, and already staff on the front line at the hospitals are benefiting from being able to park for free, near the hospital.
The gesture was the idea of local resident Robyn Read, who has now had pledges of more than 100 days from her neighbours and friends.
She decided to do something after a friend who works at the hospital was told they shouldn’t get the bus in, for safety reasons, but were told they would have to pay to park.
She got on the NextDoor app, and the donations from neighbours and friends came flooding in.
“I started this all on a whim on Thursday,” she told Bristol Live.
“A colleague told me how much his girlfriend was paying for parking at St Michael’s so I offered them my permit as I wasn’t working from home.
“Then on the NextDoor app I posted to my neighbours to ask if anyone would donate their visitor passes. It’s all grown legs since then, the amount that has been donated is amazing!”
Robyn has become the impromptu conduit, matching up parking permits with staff, and it’s grown by word-of-mouth both among neighbours in Kingsdown and Cotham, but also within the staff rooms at the hospitals.
Robyn said that while the residents wouldn’t have enough to help every one of the thousands of staff at the hospitals, they could do what they can.
The gesture highlighted the need for staff to have free parking, and Bristol City Council soon opened up the Trenchard Street car park, near the BRI, for NHS staff.
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Other car parks, including ones at Cabot Circus and Broadmead Galleries - and at Horfield Leisure Centre for Southmead Hospital staff - have now been opened up for free to NHS staff as they battle the coronavirus crisis.
Robyn said she was pleased the regular car parks were being made available, but said the crisis showed that, actually, they should be free to NHS staff all the time anyway.
