IT was with interest that I read in the Evening News that the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has only recently applied to the city council for 280 car parking spaces at the new hospital.

It should have been done years ago at the planning stage. If that figure is correct, where will the Chief Executive and all the administrators park?

Obviously there will be no reserved spaces for them. No doubt, they will lead from the top and set the example by using public transport or by going on foot.

Everybody else in Worcester and the surrounding area has known all along that there would be insufficient spaces, even before the two office blocks were built on the obvious place for a car park (or Nurses Home).

I have not been able to discover how many car parking spaces are to be reserved for "outpatients" appointments each week.

Having built the new hospital on the city boundary, it follows that all these patients will need transport in order to get there and I imagine that at least 80 per cent of them will need to use the car park, in addition to the staff of course.

No doubt the Hospital Trust will be able to give the exact number of people using the public car park at the nearby Ronkswood hospital, plus, say, another 100 a day for those parking on the grass verges and nearby streets. They will also know how many staff at Ronkswood and Newtown already use their cars to go to work.

Could it be that the Hospital Trust is really only considering the patients in applying for 280 spaces? I understand that staff living less than seven miles away will not be permitted to use their cars. If they live more than seven miles away there will be nowhere for them to park anyway when the hospital opens next Easter.

As for the well-known shortage of beds - well, that's another problem.

JOHN FREEMAN.

Hallow, Worcester.