FEATURE FOCUS ON SCOTLAND
SCOTTISH
parking SHOWS STREAK OF INDEPENDENCE
With free parking in most hospitals and tougher rules for cracking down on Blue Badge fraud, Lisa Adams investigates the parking situation in Scotland
o you agree that Scotland should be an independent country? That’s the question voters north of the border will face at the polls in 2014 under plans unveiled by fi rst minister Alex Salmond. The referendum is in the same year as the 700th anniversary of the Scottish victory over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn, and could put an end to the 300-year Union of the Crowns between England and Scotland. But Scotland already has a proud history of diversity, with centuries old differences in its education and legal system. Devolution in 1999 allowed for further changes with medical prescriptions and university education, now free in Scotland. It’s no surprise, then, that Scots have evolved a different approach to parking, claims Gordon Catchlove, chairman of the Scottish group of
D 30 JULY 2012
the British Parking Association, and parking fraud prevention offi cer.
Catchlove says: ‘If Scotland became independent then we could see more differences, but not all of them are working. If England goes the same way as Scotland and introduces free parking in hospitals, it will suffer the same problems as we are suffering. There is no such thing as a free parking space. Someone is paying for it.’
Exceptions to the rule
The banning of parking charges in hospitals brought in by the Scottish Government in 2008 is indeed proving controversial. The only exceptions in Scotland are three private fi nance initiative hospitals – Edinburgh and Glasgow Royal Infi rmaries and Ninewells in Dundee – which do still charge. Macmillan Cancer Support has now launched a campaign, calling on Trusts in England to follow Scotland’s example and ‘give hospital car parking charges the boot.’ But is Scotland really the model of excellence it’s held up to be?
www.britishparking.co.uk
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