GRH patient told to park on double yellow lines

“Give it a rest, for those of you with nothing better to do leave it alone”

“Why is disability linked with an ability to pay for parking. You often see large BMW 4 x 4 with blue badges. The GRH bays are also used by staff (legitimately?) when the bays are no nearer the hospital than multi-story or staff parks.”

“ChorltonHardy, there are plenty of parking spaces, but not enough for blue badge holders. You have conflated two issues. The car park is run by a private company, which charges £1.80 per hour and doesn't provide free spaces for anyone. That's the real disgrace here.

I wonder if the blue badge spaces are properly policed. Are non-disabled parking there for free?

I still think that going to the media before appealing the fine was putting the cart before the horse.”

“Wow - really? People are rating my comment with a thumbs down, for daring to say the sick and dying should be allowed to park near their actual LIFELINE - their hospital? Are you brave enough to reveal yourselves? Nope, thought not.

When you have been seriously ill.. or undergone major life-saving surgery... or kept a vigil by the bed of a dying cancer patient (yes, all of which I've been through at our fantastic local hospitals).. THEN you can judge the importance of being able to park there.”

“Quite eyeopener, the lady, who lives opposite me has MS, and has 24 hour nursing care, in the morning more nurses turn up. I most certainely wouldn't want to be in her shoes. Its a pity people do not realise what a terrible illness this is. I feel for Emily she is a young lady and her future does not look bright, unless there are medical breakthroughs to improve and stabilise her condition. I would give her free parking any day of the week. Shame on some of the people on here. There by the grace of god springs to mind.”

“When the Paralympics were on our screens and our disabled sporting heroes were covering the country in glory and raising our international profile to all our delight; and the undisguised joy a mop haired would be prime minister, the disabled could do no wrong.

Now the Paralympic flame has been extinguished and as the warm glow we all felt fades, life is back to normal. How dare the disabled speak to newspapers! There is nothing worse than an 'uppity' blue badge holder, who has forgotten her place, and reminded us all that actually there are others worse off than ourselves.”

“Whilst I feel sorry for this lady's distress, there is a clearly defined process for appealing against a ticket. Put your appeal in writing and it will be considered.

Going to the newspaper is not the best idea. Particularly if you do not wish for people to then read your story and make comments. Have you thought about how the council receptionist may be feeling reading your story - they were just doing their job?

Finally, Mr Mean - there are two sides to every story and just recently there have been a lot of rather one sided news items. Is nothing else of interest happening?”

“The real problem is that the hospitals do not have enough parking. If you are ill and have an important appointment, or visiting the sick or dying, the last thing you want to worry about is parking your car. Then you get objections to increasing the parking because - as in Cheltenham for example - a multi-storey car park would upset the Lido swimmers for 4 months of the year. It's about time people got their priorities right and realised that helping the ill and dying is a bit more important than - gosh - parking issues.”

“The parking signs are absolutely clear. Emily simply assumed that the parking bay was pay-and-display, so she didn't look. She should have appealed the parking fine before going to the media to complain. How does she know that the parking fine won't be cancelled if she explains her mistake and asks nicely for it to be rescinded?”

“I cannot believe the vicious comments on here today. Leave the poor girl alone, dont you think she has enough to cope with. She is only in her twenties and has a life limiting disease. Some people are so heartless. Karma springs to mind.”