PLANS are in place to ‘bus in’ consultants and nurses from Pensarn to Glangwili Hospital, in an attempt to improve the parking situation.
The busy hospital which suffers from parking shortages is considering the option to open up more parking spaces for visitors and patients.
Nearby housing estates and roads are often clogged as members of the public are forced to look elsewhere for parking spaces.
The plans, which are under consideration by the Hywel Dda Community Health Council, would see staff use the bus scheme from Morrisons supermarket in Pensarn.
The plans were revealed at a meeting of Carmarthen Town Council.
Barry Williams, who is Chair of the Hywel Dda Community Health Council, said at the meeting: “In the latest talks there are proposals of ‘bussing’ staff and consultants in from Morrisoms.”
Named consultant spaces within the car park have already been removed in an attempt to provide more parking spaces for the general public.
However, 25 more staff parking spaces have been proposed by the health board.
A Health Board survey revealed that one-in-five of out-patients missed their appointments due to parking problems,” said Cllr Alun Lenny.
“While we welcome the extension of clinical services at Glangwili, it’s totally unacceptable that so many outpatients, after months of waiting to see a specialist, have to leave their cars at the roadside or just turn around and go home. It’s also a serious problem for staff and for visitors at peak times.”
“We have a constant stream of complaints from local residents at nearby estates who find their drives blocked by people visiting the hospital,” said Cllr Peter Hughes Griffiths. “In addition, the main roads into Carmarthen town from Lampeter and Cardigan are often down to single lane traffic due to illegal parking.”
“A multi-storey car park would be an obvious solution, but that would take over a year to build, during which time over a 100 car parking spaces would be lost,” said Cllr Alun Lenny.
“We’ve asked the Health Board to consider temporary car decking. Such steel decking can be erected in days. It would cost the Health Board a lot of money, but then so does losing 20% of consultants’ appointments.”
“We’re glad that the Health Board is already implementing a raft of measures to provide extra parking,” said Cllr Hughes Griffiths.
“These include releasing 30-40 extra spaces by doing away with named spaces for consultants, cutting down on business meetings and training sessions on the Glangwili site, piloting staggered visiting times, further promoting the town’s Park and Ride, and planning 25 new spaces on hospital grounds.”
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