Burton Hospital FoI cock-up. They want to make it clear ParkingEye is gouging patients at £420,000 a year

This rather panicky email went out from Burton Hospital, probably as a result of the Prankster's previous blog and the resulting media attention.

Further to our response to your FoI request regarding a list of suppliers whose total invoices totalled more than £25,000 in any one month of 2014, it has come to our attention that we released the wrong information in our response.  After reviewing all the information, we can now confirm that our parking contractor's invoices amount to less than £7,000 a month.   We apologise for the error and any inconvenience caused.

The revised figures pan out as follows

£7,000 a month leads to the motorist being gouged for £35,000 a month, or £420,000 a year.

This of course is still a sizable chunk of money, and does not change any of the underlying premises. Had the Prankster stated that initially that motorists were being gouged for £420,000 a year, the problem would still remain. The Prankster is therefore happy to repeat the concerns:

The government has stated it does not want hospitals to use Parking operators who provide their services for 'free' and this hospital shows why. Vulnerable motorists are being gouged at an alarming rate.

Burton hospital signage has been described as especially confusing. These figures show why. It is of course an advantage for ParkingEye to confuse motorists because this means they can issue more parking charges. It is perfectly possible to run a hospital car park without confusing motorists but this would generate little or no revenue for ParkingEye. Bristol Eye Hospital is a perfect example of this where an FoI request showed no tickets were issued for overstays in a three month period. ParkingEye would go bankrupt if were constrained to operate in a fair manner as exemplified by this hospital.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster