Hospital staff have been reminded to be "good neighbours" as a road nearby continues to be plagued by "inconsiderate" parking. Neighbours on Alderton Road in the Edwards Lane estate, Sherwood next to Nottingham City Hospital have again aired their frustration at the number of motorists parking all the way through the estate - with some demanding action to solve the problem.
NCT buses have had to divert due to the problem, which is attributed to NCH staff attempting to avoid paying for the hospital's parking. Locals previously opted to take matters into their own hands, putting bins in the road to stop motorists from parking outside their house and blocking their drives.
Retiree Trevor Horner, 84, said: "When you cannot park where you live it gets quite frustrating as it is unfair. I don't like to report it as work for the hospital, but it is quite inconsiderate sometimes when you can't get your car back in.
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"We put bins out before and people have cones and 'no parking' signs, but it has not got any better. Sometimes I look outside and think 'bleeding hell how am I supposed to get out' - parking sensibly is fine but not over people's drives."
Robert Gisby, 64, a retiree who has lived on Alderton Road for 25 years and said the situation had become worse in recent years, said: "A lot of the neighbours are upset about it. The houses have trouble getting out. They cannot drop people off at the bus stop because there is always a car there. Sometimes it gets very chaotic. On the weekend it is like a different place because there's no cars. Not a lot of these cars are those of people who live here."
Nottingham University Hospitals, which runs both the Queen's Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital, explained it had been reiterating its message over staff parking and organised a number of travel schemes. Andrew Chatten, Director of Estates and Facilities at Nottingham University Hospitals said: “We have and will continue to remind our staff to be good neighbours and ask them to refrain from parking on roads around our hospital sites.
“In order to help reduce the need for staff to park on our sites, NUH has provided a number of travel to work schemes for staff, including introducing a direct shuttle bus for staff from the Phoenix Park, Park and Ride and building a new cycle compound. We have also recently increased our staff car parking capacity at Nottingham City Hospital.”
But Dominika Chom, 30, who works as an operation manager and lives on Alderton Road, questioned why no parking permits had been put in place on the road to act as a deterrent. "It is really inconsiderate," she said.
"It is the whole street all the way up the road. It is really annoying that every time I go out I have to check for cars parked outside. I've had to get two cars towed away, one was just after I moved here in 2020."
Nottingham City Council outlined that while restrictions could be put in place in the future, parking permits would require a thorough consultation process. “We are aware of historic issues in Edwards Lane around commuter parking and parts of the road are already heavily-restricted with a mixture of pay-and-display sections and resident permit schemes," a spokesperson said.
“This remains under regular review and it may be in the future that further restrictions could be added, subject to funding being available and with the support of local householders. It’s important to be clear that permits are not universally popular and would not be implemented without prior consultation.”
