A FOUR-hour limit will be placed on patients and visitors using car parks at Gwent’s two major hospitals, to try to ease the problem of ‘fly’ parking.

Since hospital car parking charges were abolished in Wales 18 months ago, some sites have had problems with people parking for non-hospital business, such as shopping or work nearby.

The former Gwent Healthcare Trust experiences this problem at the Royal Gwent in Newport, and Nevill Hall in Abergavenny, which have very busy car parks, and which are both close enough to their respective city and town centres to be attractive to shoppers or non-NHS staff not wishing to pay for their parking.

Now the trust’s successor body, the Aneurin Bevan Local Health Board, has taken up its predecessor’s work in developing a parking scheme to try to minimise what is known as ‘fly’ parking.

The four-hour limit attempts to strike a balance between minimising inconvenience to patients or visitors, some of whom may have to remain in hospital for close to or more than four hours, and deterring long-stay ‘fly’ parkers, though it will not provide a total solution to the latter.

Hospital car park users will be able to obtain a four-hour ticket free of charge from existing machines originally installed when car parking charges were introduced. It is understood that these can be renewed when the initial period expires, and there will be an appeals process.

“Those that exceed four hours will be issued with a Parking Charge Notice (PCN), and there will be a period to appeal against this penalty,” said an LHB spokesman.

“Staff will continue to park free in allocated areas but they must show a permit in their vehicle. Vehicles not showing a permit or a valid ticket will be issued with a PCN.”

Details of penalty charges, when the scheme will begin, and whether or not the LHB or an outside operator will administer it, have not been finalised.