BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
One of the problems with this 'reasoning' is that there's never going to be a realistic alternative means to using a car for many journeys.
Going by your own car means going from home / work to the destination.
Going by bus involves walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, going by bus to the town centre, walking to another bus stop, waiting for the second bus, going by the second bus to the destination, walking to the destination.
Which is going to cost more, take far longer, be less comfortable and far less flexible.
And, with an unfriendly bus driver and some real dross on the bus, probably.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
One of the problems with this 'reasoning' is that there's never going to be a realistic alternative means to using a car for many journeys.
Going by your own car means going from home / work to the destination.
Going by bus involves walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, going by bus to the town centre, walking to another bus stop, waiting for the second bus, going by the second bus to the destination, walking to the destination.
Which is going to cost more, take far longer, be less comfortable and far less flexible.
Quite, and frankly sick people and those worried about them don't need to spend 45 minutes looking for a space to park because climate change. There are other, better places to change the world.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I think that's nonsense.
In reality all those cars are circling around and trying to find somewhere to park or double parking.
Just provide a large multi-storey and get over it.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
Most people being seen at a hospital are not in work.
It is amusing to me how some of our sites most ardent Labour/Tony Blair supporters are vicious critics of what Israel is doing with regards to Iran. The rank hypocrisy absolutely stinks.
Regardless of what you think of the wisdom of the Iraq war in hindsight, when it comes to legitimacy, comparing the two side-by-side is instructive.
We claimed the right to invade Iraq due to self-defence due to their seeking WMDs (non-nuclear) Israel claims the right to bomb (not invade) Iran due to self-defence due to their seeking WMDs (nuclear).
Iraq had not attacked the UK, either directly or indirectly. Iran has repeatedly attacked Israel, both directly and indirectly.
Iraq was not seeking the destruction of the UK. Iran is seeking the destruction of Israel.
We claimed due to some controversial evidence that Iraq was seeking non-nuclear WMDs (which in hindsight was wrong). There is uncontroversial evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear WMDs.
Regardless of what you think of Israel in general, or the war in Iraq in hindsight, as far as legitimate claims to self-defence go . . . the Israeli claims of self-defence here are a million times stronger than anything Blair could claim.
The UK’s claim to attack Iraq was more specifically that Iraq had broken a UN Security Council resolution.
Quite a lot of very poor information (at best) and lying (at worst) in the build up though. Like 'sexing up' a report to make the case stronger. Such as giving the impression that Saddam could attack the UK with 45 minutes notice, which was rather definitely not true.
Frankly I was astonished that Blair wasn't brought down by the David Kelly affair. A better man might have resigned.
Even though I greatly enjoyed Iraq at the time, I find the whole thing staggering in retrospect.
Why the fuck did Blair do it? He can't have believed all of the WMD flannel. Did he want the approval of GWB and the US establishment that much? Was he just bored having ceded so much of the domestic policy turf to Brown. All of the above. No explanation seems wholly credible.
Genuine belief he was doing the right thing, I think.
In all interviews I have seen with him since, he is at his most sincere when defending his decisions at that time. I, like most, are not convinced by the way the conflict was sold to us at the time, and I think the passage of time has borne that out, but I have no doubt he thought that the decision was correct.
You have to look at what we knew at the time, not what we know now, and put it in the context of the time.
There's a very good book on being a UN chemical weapons inspector in the 1990s, and (to me at least) it showed how people in power in the west could easily have come to believe that Saddam had such weapons.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I agree with a lot of your post, but I think in Clarkson's case a lot of other stuff played into it as well. Increased traffic is often used as a bogus excuse by NIMBYs to forestall development. Though, of course, it can also be utterly valid.
What annoys me is the combination of trying to reduce parking, and *reduced* public transport and accessibility.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
My GP doesn't have any bike racks. When I mentioned this to the doctor he was incredulous - couldn't even imagine someone cycling to a medical appointment and told me isn't wasn't worth the investment.
Sums up everything that's wrong with the NHS.
I hired a Lime bike with my co-workers app in London last Thursday and, for the first time ever, rode an electric bike back to Waterloo.
I got abuse or passive-aggressive sarcasm at least twice: assuming it wasn't just me or my cycling (both very possible) then my conclusion is that people really don't like cyclists very much.
I was one for about 9 minutes.
Why do cyclists in London think the red lights don't apply to them?
Obeying, without question, the strictures of a metal box with a light it in is the mentality of a fucking slave.
I take it you didn’t obey the strictures of the metal box with a light showing low fuel when you were flying?
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
A multistory car park is spectacularly expensive & those £ have to come out of NHS budgets that could go to other buildings. That’s before you even consider the land value which, given that hospitals are usually built in cities, is itself high.
See also “The high cost of free parking” by Donald Shoup (not that hospital parking is usually free, but many of the same arguments apply).
Its never going to be free parking. You recoup the cost from those parking their. And I don't believe that multistory car-parks need to be expensive - surely its concrete and steel?
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I think that's nonsense.
In reality all those cars are circling around and trying to find somewhere to park or double parking.
Just provide a large multi-storey and get over it.
It's true - just look at any planning documentation for a major hospital.
For example, a significant proportion of the congestion on the Edinburgh bypass is caused by people driving to the retail parks at Fort Kinnaird and Hermiston Gait. Indeed, most of the road congestion here is caused by people going to and from the Lothians, not actually driving around the city.
Causes huge issues for people trying to get to work or move goods around. This stuff matters, I'm afraid. There's a real science to it.
It is amusing to me how some of our sites most ardent Labour/Tony Blair supporters are vicious critics of what Israel is doing with regards to Iran. The rank hypocrisy absolutely stinks.
Regardless of what you think of the wisdom of the Iraq war in hindsight, when it comes to legitimacy, comparing the two side-by-side is instructive.
We claimed the right to invade Iraq due to self-defence due to their seeking WMDs (non-nuclear) Israel claims the right to bomb (not invade) Iran due to self-defence due to their seeking WMDs (nuclear).
Iraq had not attacked the UK, either directly or indirectly. Iran has repeatedly attacked Israel, both directly and indirectly.
Iraq was not seeking the destruction of the UK. Iran is seeking the destruction of Israel.
We claimed due to some controversial evidence that Iraq was seeking non-nuclear WMDs (which in hindsight was wrong). There is uncontroversial evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear WMDs.
Regardless of what you think of Israel in general, or the war in Iraq in hindsight, as far as legitimate claims to self-defence go . . . the Israeli claims of self-defence here are a million times stronger than anything Blair could claim.
The UK’s claim to attack Iraq was more specifically that Iraq had broken a UN Security Council resolution.
Quite a lot of very poor information (at best) and lying (at worst) in the build up though. Like 'sexing up' a report to make the case stronger. Such as giving the impression that Saddam could attack the UK with 45 minutes notice, which was rather definitely not true.
Frankly I was astonished that Blair wasn't brought down by the David Kelly affair. A better man might have resigned.
Even though I greatly enjoyed Iraq at the time, I find the whole thing staggering in retrospect.
Why the fuck did Blair do it? He can't have believed all of the WMD flannel. Did he want the approval of GWB and the US establishment that much? Was he just bored having ceded so much of the domestic policy turf to Brown. All of the above. No explanation seems wholly credible.
Genuine belief he was doing the right thing, I think.
In all interviews I have seen with him since, he is at his most sincere when defending his decisions at that time. I, like most, are not convinced by the way the conflict was sold to us at the time, and I think the passage of time has borne that out, but I have no doubt he thought that the decision was correct.
You have to look at what we knew at the time, not what we know now, and put it in the context of the time.
There's a very good book on being a UN chemical weapons inspector in the 1990s, and (to me at least) it showed how people in power in the west could easily have come to believe that Saddam had such weapons.
That should have been out caught behind, but Aussies had no reviews left.
Ha - seen that before (2019 Stokes greatest innings!)
Yes I remember that. It was totally Murphy's Law that after the Australians used up all their reviews they'd have one that really was out and couldn't do anything about it.
For example, a significant proportion of the congestion on the Edinburgh bypass is caused by people driving to the retail parks at Fort Kinnaird and Hermiston Gait. Indeed, most of the road congestion here is caused by people going to and from the Lothians, not actually driving around the city.
Causes huge issues for people trying to get to work or move goods around. This stuff matters, I'm afraid. There's a real science to it.
IIRC for years the main transport boffin for Edinburgh Council was a cyclist, which explains a lot...
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I think that's nonsense.
In reality all those cars are circling around and trying to find somewhere to park or double parking.
Just provide a large multi-storey and get over it.
This is the new ideology we all live under. They make it as difficult as possible to do something in order to force people to do things the way they want people to do them. So it must be made difficult for people to park their cars at hospitals, so that those with medical conditions have to use buses instead.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I think that's nonsense.
In reality all those cars are circling around and trying to find somewhere to park or double parking.
Just provide a large multi-storey and get over it.
It's true - just look at any planning documentation for a major hospital.
For example, a significant proportion of the congestion on the Edinburgh bypass is caused by people driving to the retail parks at Fort Kinnaird and Hermiston Gait. Indeed, most of the road congestion here is caused by people going to and from the Lothians, not actually driving around the city.
Causes huge issues for people trying to get to work or move goods around. This stuff matters, I'm afraid. There's a real science to it.
There's no science to it.
The paucity of parking at hospitals is deliberate bollocks.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I agree with a lot of your post, but I think in Clarkson's case a lot of other stuff played into it as well. Increased traffic is often used as a bogus excuse by NIMBYs to forestall development. Though, of course, it can also be utterly valid.
What annoys me is the combination of trying to reduce parking, and *reduced* public transport and accessibility.
Agree. One of the sillier things in Scotland is the provision of free parking at our hospitals when no such subsidy is made for those getting there by bus or by bicycle.
It's regressive in it makes life easier for richer patients, while stimulating congestion and moving people away from healthier ways of getting around.
It is amusing to me how some of our sites most ardent Labour/Tony Blair supporters are vicious critics of what Israel is doing with regards to Iran. The rank hypocrisy absolutely stinks.
Regardless of what you think of the wisdom of the Iraq war in hindsight, when it comes to legitimacy, comparing the two side-by-side is instructive.
We claimed the right to invade Iraq due to self-defence due to their seeking WMDs (non-nuclear) Israel claims the right to bomb (not invade) Iran due to self-defence due to their seeking WMDs (nuclear).
Iraq had not attacked the UK, either directly or indirectly. Iran has repeatedly attacked Israel, both directly and indirectly.
Iraq was not seeking the destruction of the UK. Iran is seeking the destruction of Israel.
We claimed due to some controversial evidence that Iraq was seeking non-nuclear WMDs (which in hindsight was wrong). There is uncontroversial evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear WMDs.
Regardless of what you think of Israel in general, or the war in Iraq in hindsight, as far as legitimate claims to self-defence go . . . the Israeli claims of self-defence here are a million times stronger than anything Blair could claim.
The UK’s claim to attack Iraq was more specifically that Iraq had broken a UN Security Council resolution.
Quite a lot of very poor information (at best) and lying (at worst) in the build up though. Like 'sexing up' a report to make the case stronger. Such as giving the impression that Saddam could attack the UK with 45 minutes notice, which was rather definitely not true.
Frankly I was astonished that Blair wasn't brought down by the David Kelly affair. A better man might have resigned.
Even though I greatly enjoyed Iraq at the time, I find the whole thing staggering in retrospect.
Why the fuck did Blair do it? He can't have believed all of the WMD flannel. Did he want the approval of GWB and the US establishment that much? Was he just bored having ceded so much of the domestic policy turf to Brown. All of the above. No explanation seems wholly credible.
Genuine belief he was doing the right thing, I think.
In all interviews I have seen with him since, he is at his most sincere when defending his decisions at that time. I, like most, are not convinced by the way the conflict was sold to us at the time, and I think the passage of time has borne that out, but I have no doubt he thought that the decision was correct.
i admit that Tony Blair is good at sincerity, very good -- but he is/was a lawyer -- it seems inconceivable that he wasn't aware of the lack of reliable evidence that Iraq had WMDs
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I disagree - it is partly ideology. You see this drive in all organisations - they are anti-car.
I accept that there can be issues around the local roads, but when you have hospitals actively reducing the number of parking spots, that is not because congestion.
The council in Clarkson's case have probably been portrayed a bit unfairly, but are also rather short sighted. Why not try to and cash in on the back of the success of Diddly Squat? Its bringing people to the area, have other things to do. You get the impression that too many of them love there idyllic country village lives and don't want any change.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
Most people being seen at a hospital are not in work.
And very many are. I was an out patient for chemo and follow ups whilst working working at the Uni. I assume you are mainly highlight the age of the majority of patients? Well what about family visitors?
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
Most people being seen at a hospital are not in work.
I'm sorry, I'm really not being provocative, but what has that got to do with it ? When my parents were in their eighties a few years back now they were not as you would describe it as "in work". That doesn't mean they could have got to hospital by some imaginary public transport. No taxi could have got to their house, even if such a thing existed. They were both very poorly mobile and they couldn't have used the bus that travels from our town to the hospital once a week even if it were on the same day as their appointments. A hospital appointment mean a half day at least for me to accompany them if I could fit it in with my schedule or else someone else to take them. And if it was a delicate or difficult appointment then not unreasonably my mother needed a friend to accompany her as well as me.
I can remember having to drop my mother off for one appointment next to the door, seeing her into reception and having immediately to remove my car to a legal space 300 yards from where I dropped her off. When I can back she had been ushered to God knows where, trying to find her in a busy hospital over 80 and rather confused, not at all easy. Car parking is essential.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
Most people being seen at a hospital are not in work.
And very many are. I was an out patient for chemo and follow ups whilst working working at the Uni. I assume you are mainly highlight the age of the majority of patients? Well what about family visitors?
Many are, yes. Yes, visitors to inpatients may be more likely to be in work. I’m not supporting any particular policy on hospital parking. I was just noting that most patients are not in work.
The 280,000 figure appears to be sourced from this entirely anonymous Google Spreadsheet labelled “Enterprise Statistics” which is high in the search results if you search for “OnlyFans statistics”: https://simplebeen.com/onlyfans-statistics/
If you dig into that spreadsheet you’ll discover that the 280,000 figure for the UK is marked in Grey which means (see the Documentazione tab on the spreadsheet) that the source for that figure is ... wait for it ... ChatGPT.
So the Spectator splashed a story on the front page where the source turns out ultimately to be ChatGPT. Shocking failure all round: Do they not fact check anything?
I can imagine at least one of their hacks was very excited by the thought of 4% of young women on OnlyFans. Probably Rod Liddle as well.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I disagree - it is partly ideology. You see this drive in all organisations - they are anti-car.
I accept that there can be issues around the local roads, but when you have hospitals actively reducing the number of parking spots, that is not because congestion.
The council in Clarkson's case have probably been portrayed a bit unfairly, but are also rather short sighted. Why not try to and cash in on the back of the success of Diddly Squat? Its bringing people to the area, have other things to do. You get the impression that too many of them love there idyllic country village lives and don't want any change.
Why do you think people have an "anti-car" idealogy? I've been driving since I was 17 as a a household we do about 16,000 miles a year, yet I'm one of the bigger advocates for public transport and active travel on PB. When there isn't a thunderstorm, I spend most of my weekend trundling up the A9.
I think it's our car dependency that has driven this feeling, ultimately. The deep frustration of trying to get to an office in Livingstone for Dunfermline by train. Interminable hours stuck on the bypass in our car. The vulnerability of trying to cycle to something like the RIE. The lack of buses and trains where I grew up, which made getting into Inverness or Aberdeen so difficult.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
My GP doesn't have any bike racks. When I mentioned this to the doctor he was incredulous - couldn't even imagine someone cycling to a medical appointment and told me isn't wasn't worth the investment.
Sums up everything that's wrong with the NHS.
I hired a Lime bike with my co-workers app in London last Thursday and, for the first time ever, rode an electric bike back to Waterloo.
I got abuse or passive-aggressive sarcasm at least twice: assuming it wasn't just me or my cycling (both very possible) then my conclusion is that people really don't like cyclists very much.
I was one for about 9 minutes.
Why do cyclists in London think the red lights don't apply to them?
Obeying, without question, the strictures of a metal box with a light it in is the mentality of a fucking slave.
Agreed.
But also...going straight through red lights at top speed without looking is the mentality of a fucking lunatic.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I disagree - it is partly ideology. You see this drive in all organisations - they are anti-car.
I accept that there can be issues around the local roads, but when you have hospitals actively reducing the number of parking spots, that is not because congestion.
The council in Clarkson's case have probably been portrayed a bit unfairly, but are also rather short sighted. Why not try to and cash in on the back of the success of Diddly Squat? Its bringing people to the area, have other things to do. You get the impression that too many of them love there idyllic country village lives and don't want any change.
Why do you think people have an "anti-car" idealogy? I've been driving since I was 17 as a a household we do about 16,000 miles a year, yet I'm one of the bigger advocates for public transport and active travel on PB. When there isn't a thunderstorm, I spend most of my weekend trundling up the A9.
I think it's our car dependency that has driven this feeling, ultimately. The deep frustration of trying to get to an office in Livingstone for Dunfermline by train. Interminable hours stuck on the bypass in our car. The vulnerability of trying to cycle to something like the RIE. The lack of buses and trains where I grew up, which made getting into Inverness or Aberdeen so difficult.
I'm not sure its individual people, but organisations trying to reduce their climate impact very often go after travel.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
A multistory car park is spectacularly expensive & those £ have to come out of NHS budgets that could go to other buildings. That’s before you even consider the land value which, given that hospitals are usually built in cities, is itself high.
See also “The high cost of free parking” by Donald Shoup (not that hospital parking is usually free, but many of the same arguments apply).
I work on construction and can tell you that's nonsense. Multi storey car parks can very easily wash their own face.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
My GP doesn't have any bike racks. When I mentioned this to the doctor he was incredulous - couldn't even imagine someone cycling to a medical appointment and told me isn't wasn't worth the investment.
Sums up everything that's wrong with the NHS.
I hired a Lime bike with my co-workers app in London last Thursday and, for the first time ever, rode an electric bike back to Waterloo.
I got abuse or passive-aggressive sarcasm at least twice: assuming it wasn't just me or my cycling (both very possible) then my conclusion is that people really don't like cyclists very much.
I was one for about 9 minutes.
Why do cyclists in London think the red lights don't apply to them?
Obeying, without question, the strictures of a metal box with a light it in is the mentality of a fucking slave.
Agreed.
But also...going straight through red lights at top speed without looking is the mentality of a fucking lunatic.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
Most people being seen at a hospital are not in work.
I'm sorry, I'm really not being provocative, but what has that got to do with it ? When my parents were in their eighties a few years back now they were not as you would describe it as "in work". That doesn't mean they could have got to hospital by some imaginary public transport. No taxi could have got to their house, even if such a thing existed. They were both very poorly mobile and they couldn't have used the bus that travels from our town to the hospital once a week even if it were on the same day as their appointments. A hospital appointment mean a half day at least for me to accompany them if I could fit it in with my schedule or else someone else to take them. And if it was a delicate or difficult appointment then not unreasonably my mother needed a friend to accompany her as well as me.
I can remember having to drop my mother off for one appointment next to the door, seeing her into reception and having immediately to remove my car to a legal space 300 yards from where I dropped her off. When I can back she had been ushered to God knows where, trying to find her in a busy hospital over 80 and rather confused, not at all easy. Car parking is essential.
I wasn’t disagreeing with any of that.
I would have thought your parents would have been eligible for patient transport, with a door to door service. This has its own problems, however, with patients typically collected and returned hours before/after appointments, turning almost any appointment into an all-day event.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I agree with a lot of your post, but I think in Clarkson's case a lot of other stuff played into it as well. Increased traffic is often used as a bogus excuse by NIMBYs to forestall development. Though, of course, it can also be utterly valid.
What annoys me is the combination of trying to reduce parking, and *reduced* public transport and accessibility.
Agree. One of the sillier things in Scotland is the provision of free parking at our hospitals when no such subsidy is made for those getting there by bus or by bicycle.
It's regressive in it makes life easier for richer patients, while stimulating congestion and moving people away from healthier ways of getting around.
You are speaking from the point of view of a fanatical cyclist: you represent a special interest and an elitist minority.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I disagree - it is partly ideology. You see this drive in all organisations - they are anti-car.
I accept that there can be issues around the local roads, but when you have hospitals actively reducing the number of parking spots, that is not because congestion.
The council in Clarkson's case have probably been portrayed a bit unfairly, but are also rather short sighted. Why not try to and cash in on the back of the success of Diddly Squat? Its bringing people to the area, have other things to do. You get the impression that too many of them love there idyllic country village lives and don't want any change.
Why do you think people have an "anti-car" idealogy? I've been driving since I was 17 as a a household we do about 16,000 miles a year, yet I'm one of the bigger advocates for public transport and active travel on PB. When there isn't a thunderstorm, I spend most of my weekend trundling up the A9.
I think it's our car dependency that has driven this feeling, ultimately. The deep frustration of trying to get to an office in Livingstone for Dunfermline by train. Interminable hours stuck on the bypass in our car. The vulnerability of trying to cycle to something like the RIE. The lack of buses and trains where I grew up, which made getting into Inverness or Aberdeen so difficult.
I'm not sure its individual people, but organisations trying to reduce their climate impact very often go after travel.
I think people confuse the motivations. My feeling on this aren't driven by concern about the climate (though it's a lesser factor).
I guess the other thing to consider is what would happen if everyone drove to the hospital? Only 20% of all trips in Edinburgh are by car, only 30% of commutes. Can you imagine how bad the parking situation would be if it weren't for those of us walking, cycling or taking the bus?
I see them around from time to time, so I assume some people are using them.
Ordinary buses here also have ways that people in wheelchairs can use them. I often see them on my bus rides. (The front entrances have little platforms that lower down, and then can lift the chair. In the front of the bus, there are areas in which the wheelchairs can be strapped into place.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I agree with a lot of your post, but I think in Clarkson's case a lot of other stuff played into it as well. Increased traffic is often used as a bogus excuse by NIMBYs to forestall development. Though, of course, it can also be utterly valid.
What annoys me is the combination of trying to reduce parking, and *reduced* public transport and accessibility.
Agree. One of the sillier things in Scotland is the provision of free parking at our hospitals when no such subsidy is made for those getting there by bus or by bicycle.
It's regressive in it makes life easier for richer patients, while stimulating congestion and moving people away from healthier ways of getting around.
You are speaking from the point of view of a fanatical cyclist: you represent a special interest and an elitist minority.
That's just not based in any evidence. Look at the income correlation with car mileage. A decent bike sets you back a few hundred. A car?
The real losers in this are bus users - they tend to be the poorest, and often represent older people with disabilities which mean they can't drive. The lack of services mean they lose their indepdence and can't make it to hospital without someone driving them there,
One of the problems with this 'reasoning' is that there's never going to be a realistic alternative means to using a car for many journeys.
Going by your own car means going from home / work to the destination.
Going by bus involves walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, going by bus to the town centre, walking to another bus stop, waiting for the second bus, going by the second bus to the destination, walking to the destination.
The quality of public transport to hospitals is an ongoing scandal. My local hospital is just under 8 miles away as the crow files, but getting there on public transport means using three buses and can take up to two and half hours outside of peak times. The buses also stop fairly early in the evening, meaning taxis are the only transport.
By contrast I can get to the hospital in 20 minutes on my scooter - a car would be 5-10 minutes slower. So, 40-60 minutes vs up to 5 hours for a round trip. Nobody sane is using public transport for that journey if they have any other option, not even taking into account how much more physically draining it would be for people who are sick or elderly.
Woke alert. Red Arrows flying on “sustainable biofuel”. Doing their bit for Net Zero…
The word "woke" really is a masterstroke. People who are too stupid to think can just invoke it to save themselves the effort.
Woke is a trivial example of the form. Political terms like 'left' and 'right' are far more widespread and far more intellectually insidious, saving commentators and everyone else the trouble of disclosing the substance of policy and practice.
IMHO woke has more real meaing, though not much, than my examples.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
My GP doesn't have any bike racks. When I mentioned this to the doctor he was incredulous - couldn't even imagine someone cycling to a medical appointment and told me isn't wasn't worth the investment.
Sums up everything that's wrong with the NHS.
I hired a Lime bike with my co-workers app in London last Thursday and, for the first time ever, rode an electric bike back to Waterloo.
I got abuse or passive-aggressive sarcasm at least twice: assuming it wasn't just me or my cycling (both very possible) then my conclusion is that people really don't like cyclists very much.
I was one for about 9 minutes.
Why do cyclists in London think the red lights don't apply to them?
Obeying, without question, the strictures of a metal box with a light it in is the mentality of a fucking slave.
Agreed.
But also...going straight through red lights at top speed without looking is the mentality of a fucking lunatic.
(I speak from personal experience)
Sub optimal for drivers if you have nine points on your licence.
It is amusing to me how some of our sites most ardent Labour/Tony Blair supporters are vicious critics of what Israel is doing with regards to Iran. The rank hypocrisy absolutely stinks.
Regardless of what you think of the wisdom of the Iraq war in hindsight, when it comes to legitimacy, comparing the two side-by-side is instructive.
We claimed the right to invade Iraq due to self-defence due to their seeking WMDs (non-nuclear) Israel claims the right to bomb (not invade) Iran due to self-defence due to their seeking WMDs (nuclear).
Iraq had not attacked the UK, either directly or indirectly. Iran has repeatedly attacked Israel, both directly and indirectly.
Iraq was not seeking the destruction of the UK. Iran is seeking the destruction of Israel.
We claimed due to some controversial evidence that Iraq was seeking non-nuclear WMDs (which in hindsight was wrong). There is uncontroversial evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear WMDs.
Regardless of what you think of Israel in general, or the war in Iraq in hindsight, as far as legitimate claims to self-defence go . . . the Israeli claims of self-defence here are a million times stronger than anything Blair could claim.
The UK’s claim to attack Iraq was more specifically that Iraq had broken a UN Security Council resolution.
Quite a lot of very poor information (at best) and lying (at worst) in the build up though. Like 'sexing up' a report to make the case stronger. Such as giving the impression that Saddam could attack the UK with 45 minutes notice, which was rather definitely not true.
Frankly I was astonished that Blair wasn't brought down by the David Kelly affair. A better man might have resigned.
Hutton saved Blair's skin on that occasion. If that report had even been slightly critical of the government actions, he would have found it very hard to fight the 2005 election. As it was, it was essentially a complete exoneration.
It was a lot of things. Shameful being the least of it.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
A multistory car park is spectacularly expensive & those £ have to come out of NHS budgets that could go to other buildings. That’s before you even consider the land value which, given that hospitals are usually built in cities, is itself high.
See also “The high cost of free parking” by Donald Shoup (not that hospital parking is usually free, but many of the same arguments apply).
I work on construction and can tell you that's nonsense. Multi storey car parks can very easily wash their own face.
Some new hospitals even have them.
A remarkable number of drivers will do anything to avoid using a multi storey car park.
The header is bullshit. I've cycled with a Chalfont the size, colour and texture of a monkey's fist. Honestly, not that bad with loads crème de chamois. All the nerve endings down there are dead after about 200,000km anyway.
Should the 'c' in 'Chalfont' be capitalised when used in this context?
The header is bullshit. I've cycled with a Chalfont the size, colour and texture of a monkey's fist. Honestly, not that bad with loads crème de chamois. All the nerve endings down there are dead after about 200,000km anyway.
Should the 'c' in 'Chalfont' be capitalised when used in this context?
The header is bullshit. I've cycled with a Chalfont the size, colour and texture of a monkey's fist. Honestly, not that bad with loads crème de chamois. All the nerve endings down there are dead after about 200,000km anyway.
Should the 'c' in 'Chalfont' be capitalised when used in this context?
“At least 3 people have been shot at the homes of Democratic lawmakers in Brooklyn Park and Champlin in Minnesota, according to law enforcement sources. The suspect is believed to be impersonating a police officer and is still at large. The first shooting happened just after 2 a.m. on Saturday”
“He fled the scene in a dark-colored SUV with a push-bumper, a spotlight on the drivers’ side, and red-and-blue flashing lights mounted on both the dash and rear window—equipment resembling an unmarked squad vehicle.”
My favourite - in Jon Pertwees outing Spearhead from Space there are scenes with plastic shop dummies smashing shop windows to go on the rampage. Viewers recall seeingthis. Except they didn't - all we had was the sound of glass breaking off screen. Yet people's memories differ. And then in 2005 Russel T Davies shot the scenes for real... Bigger budget.
Good news. The NHS must be improving rapidly, given that the main gripe on here seems to be hospital parking.
I wouldn't say 'improving rapidly' as much as usually not nearly as bad as is commonly painted. There are disasters. But the normal experience is usually broadly positive. Twas always the case. Parking coukd be considerably better however.
Yesterday I tipped Darren Jones as a possible next Labour leader. Well 24 hours later I've come across a better option. 'Any Questions' from Wales was particularly interesting today.
Two things shone out. Firstly Reform were humiliated. Claire Fox was all but booed and deservedly so. She was not only terrible but she unleashed the ridicule on Farage who all but seems to have supported the reintroduction of chimney sweeps.
But the big take-away was the excellence of Torsten Bell. It could be the weakness of the rest of the panel but he's extremely articulate and gave out the vibe of a sensitive human being
Hard to deny, which makes a nonsense of US policy regarding afms supply towards Ukraine since the start of the invasion.
One lesson of Ukraine & Iran is that air power sets the conditions in which any war unfolds. Ukr succeeded in frustrating Russia's much larger air force, both because of its air-defence dispersal in the first day of war & Ru air force weaknesses. Iran's air-defences collapsed. https://x.com/shashj/status/1933862841620082876
Yesterday I tipped Darren Jones as a possible next Labour leader. Well 24 hours later I've come across a better option. 'Any Questions' from Wales was particularly interesting today.
Two things shone out. Firstly Reform were humiliated. Claire Fox was all but booed and deservedly so. She was not only terrible but she unleashed the ridicule on Farage who all but seems to have supported the reintroduction of chimney sweeps.
But the big take-away was the excellence of Torsten Bell. It could be the weakness of the rest of the panel but he's extremely articulate and gave out the vibe of a sensitive human being
You know he was the architect of the EdStone...He is the wonks wonk...PPE from Oxford.
Crosses Torsten Bell off list of potential future PMs based on Rogers tipping history....
Good news. The NHS must be improving rapidly, given that the main gripe on here seems to be hospital parking.
I wouldn't say 'improving rapidly' as much as usually not nearly as bad as is commonly painted. There are disasters. But the normal experience is usually broadly positive. Twas always the case. Parking coukd be considerably better however.
My only interactions with hospitals over the last few years has been at A&E, for family and friends (and me...). When you need to get to A&E you are stressed and concerned, and the last thing you want is to bother with public transport if it can be avoided. It's therefore really stressful to have to try to find a parking space, *and* try to work out what the charges are when you arrive. Especially when the patient is a kid you cannot just drop off at the entrance.
I'd therefore class A&E trips to very different to outpatient visits, and especially scheduled visits. But it must be difficult for hospitals to separate parking for both (even if the payments are different - I think people visiting A&E at Addenbrokes get free parking, but not outpatients?)
“At least 3 people have been shot at the homes of Democratic lawmakers in Brooklyn Park and Champlin in Minnesota, according to law enforcement sources. The suspect is believed to be impersonating a police officer and is still at large. The first shooting happened just after 2 a.m. on Saturday”
“He fled the scene in a dark-colored SUV with a push-bumper, a spotlight on the drivers’ side, and red-and-blue flashing lights mounted on both the dash and rear window—equipment resembling an unmarked squad vehicle.”
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
My GP doesn't have any bike racks. When I mentioned this to the doctor he was incredulous - couldn't even imagine someone cycling to a medical appointment and told me isn't wasn't worth the investment.
Sums up everything that's wrong with the NHS.
I hired a Lime bike with my co-workers app in London last Thursday and, for the first time ever, rode an electric bike back to Waterloo.
I got abuse or passive-aggressive sarcasm at least twice: assuming it wasn't just me or my cycling (both very possible) then my conclusion is that people really don't like cyclists very much.
I was one for about 9 minutes.
Why do cyclists in London think the red lights don't apply to them?
Obeying, without question, the strictures of a metal box with a light it in is the mentality of a fucking slave.
I take it you didn’t obey the strictures of the metal box with a light showing low fuel when you were flying?
Rules are for guidance not unthinking obedience. But generally people are guided.
Yesterday I tipped Darren Jones as a possible next Labour leader. Well 24 hours later I've come across a better option. 'Any Questions' from Wales was particularly interesting today.
Two things shone out. Firstly Reform were humiliated. Claire Fox was all but booed and deservedly so. She was not only terrible but she unleashed the ridicule on Farage who all but seems to have supported the reintroduction of chimney sweeps.
But the big take-away was the excellence of Torsten Bell. It could be the weakness of the rest of the panel but he's extremely articulate and gave out the vibe of a sensitive human being
You know he was the architect of the EdStone...He is the wonks wonk...PPE from Oxford.
Crosses Torsten Bell off list of potential future PMs based on Rogers tipping history....
I deserve that BUT what's wrong with a PPE from Oxford? Sounds reasonably impressive to me and I can't believe one person was responsible for the Ed Stone
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I disagree - it is partly ideology. You see this drive in all organisations - they are anti-car.
I accept that there can be issues around the local roads, but when you have hospitals actively reducing the number of parking spots, that is not because congestion.
The council in Clarkson's case have probably been portrayed a bit unfairly, but are also rather short sighted. Why not try to and cash in on the back of the success of Diddly Squat? Its bringing people to the area, have other things to do. You get the impression that too many of them love there idyllic country village lives and don't want any change.
It cuts costs and can be presented as virtuous at the same time - absolute gold dust.
If they cared about the ideology of moving people onto different transport methods they'd spend money on encouraging the alternatives. Looks to me more like a convenient way to cut costs.
“At least 3 people have been shot at the homes of Democratic lawmakers in Brooklyn Park and Champlin in Minnesota, according to law enforcement sources. The suspect is believed to be impersonating a police officer and is still at large. The first shooting happened just after 2 a.m. on Saturday”
“He fled the scene in a dark-colored SUV with a push-bumper, a spotlight on the drivers’ side, and red-and-blue flashing lights mounted on both the dash and rear window—equipment resembling an unmarked squad vehicle.”
'Liking' this post seems fairly sick?
A like can mean ‘thank you for bringing this to my attention’.
Yesterday I tipped Darren Jones as a possible next Labour leader. Well 24 hours later I've come across a better option. 'Any Questions' from Wales was particularly interesting today.
Two things shone out. Firstly Reform were humiliated. Claire Fox was all but booed and deservedly so. She was not only terrible but she unleashed the ridicule on Farage who all but seems to have supported the reintroduction of chimney sweeps.
But the big take-away was the excellence of Torsten Bell. It could be the weakness of the rest of the panel but he's extremely articulate and gave out the vibe of a sensitive human being
You know he was the architect of the EdStone...He is the wonks wonk...PPE from Oxford.
Crosses Torsten Bell off list of potential future PMs based on Rogers tipping history....
I deserve that BUT what's wrong with a PPE from Oxford? Sounds reasonably impressive to me and I can't believe one person was responsible for the Ed Stone
Shifty review – Adam Curtis’s new show is an utter rarity: stylish, intelligent TV with something to say
The celebrated documentarian’s five-part series charts the decline of Britain’s democracy with a witty, kaleidoscopic selection of archive footage. It begins, of course, with Margaret Thatcher
They have recently built a large new multi-storey car park at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle for staff to free up spaces for visitors in the other car parks. I never have a problem getting parked myself and the charges are not extortionate for city centre parking.
I had my first demo ride in a @wayve_ai car at #CVPR2025 in Nashville. It was completely "unremarkable", which is exactly what you want. Using only RGB cameras and end-to-end training, the software drives like a human. It was smoother and less aggressive than Waymo rides and it felt more natural to me. It was a rainy day and there was a safety driver just in case, but the software had no trouble with the conditions. This is all done without ever training on Nashville -- it drives in a new city like a human would.
Good news. The NHS must be improving rapidly, given that the main gripe on here seems to be hospital parking.
I wouldn't say 'improving rapidly' as much as usually not nearly as bad as is commonly painted. There are disasters. But the normal experience is usually broadly positive. Twas always the case. Parking coukd be considerably better however.
My only interactions with hospitals over the last few years has been at A&E, for family and friends (and me...). When you need to get to A&E you are stressed and concerned, and the last thing you want is to bother with public transport if it can be avoided. It's therefore really stressful to have to try to find a parking space, *and* try to work out what the charges are when you arrive. Especially when the patient is a kid you cannot just drop off at the entrance.
I'd therefore class A&E trips to very different to outpatient visits, and especially scheduled visits. But it must be difficult for hospitals to separate parking for both (even if the payments are different - I think people visiting A&E at Addenbrokes get free parking, but not outpatients?)
A&E in the NHS is generally excellent. My guess is that is because the focus is just the patient.
By contrast, I’ve experienced very poor care on the wards, for a number of members of my family, over the years.
Not because the doctors and nurses were evil or stupid - they are mired in a system that doesn’t give them the information they need to do the job. A rotating cast of medical staff, who all prod the computer, to try and find out what is know so far. Each department seems to be several light years away from the others, so dieticians, physios etc are rumours. Joined up care seems a distant dream.
It is a hideously unproductive system. And must be terrible to work in, if you give a shit.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
To be fair, there are pretty good trams and buses to Wythenshawe if you're not in a hurry. Trafford actually has free parking. It's only not been rationalised out of existence because it was the first NHS hospital.
I am in a hurry, of course, because I work and have a busy schedule.
The NHS are still opening new hospitals with phenomenally inadequate parking. It can only be deliberate, to "encourage" use of public transport, but it never works and means you get blocked in, or double parking on verges nearby and frayed tempers.
You cannot ignore ideology in this. Lack of parking is often because of decisions to 'encourage' people to use buses etc. I am sympathetic to the overall goal but not when people are ill or caring for ill people. If you are having 6 weeks of daily chemo and every time it's hard to park, that is going to impact on your care. Our local hospital has done similar. Rather than build a multistory they chose having fewer spaces and encouraged other means if attending.
It's not idealogy. Transport planning is complex and all forms of transport work up until you get to some form of bottleneck.
If that hospital had plenty of parking, you'd find the surrounding roads congested. That might cause issues for the local community, get in the way of those buses, prevent commercial vehicles from getting around - and delay ambulances trying to get to A&E.
So the overall cost of providing parking is not in the parking spot but rather the road network around the hospital. That's why the council got so upset at Clarkson and his shop - the significant negative externality that he passed on to the rest of the community.
I disagree - it is partly ideology. You see this drive in all organisations - they are anti-car.
I accept that there can be issues around the local roads, but when you have hospitals actively reducing the number of parking spots, that is not because congestion.
The council in Clarkson's case have probably been portrayed a bit unfairly, but are also rather short sighted. Why not try to and cash in on the back of the success of Diddly Squat? Its bringing people to the area, have other things to do. You get the impression that too many of them love there idyllic country village lives and don't want any change.
It’s certainly pulling in the visitors. It was a very short detour for me to drop by the farm shop last summer, but when I saw the queue of cars tailing back down the country lane, and the staff gamely trying to marshal the cars into a fairly small field, I thought better of it and gave it a miss.
Someone just made an interesting point on Any Answers referring to the honesty of politicians...
The Tory on the Panel said it was shocking that Labour were going to spent as much on Leeds station as they were going to spend on the entire Welsh railway system.
He checked it out and discovered that more people use Leeds station than use the Welsh railway system
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
My GP doesn't have any bike racks. When I mentioned this to the doctor he was incredulous - couldn't even imagine someone cycling to a medical appointment and told me isn't wasn't worth the investment.
Sums up everything that's wrong with the NHS.
At my GP the patients are almost all either mothers with kids, sick poor or oldies. Not likely to be many cyclists among them.
If you are well enough to cycle for an emergency gp appointment then you are to well to need one
Someone just made an interesting point on Any Answers referring to the honesty of politicians...
The Tory on the Panel said it was shocking that Labour were going to spent as much on Leeds station as they were going to spend on the entire Welsh railway system.
He checked it out and discovered that more people use Leeds station than use the Welsh railway system
The question is whether you should invest in places where people are already using them, or where they are not. See the endless focus on London for infrastructure projects.
BTW - 2 positive NHS experiences in two weeks with various ill daughters: one with a GP appointment the same day and a referral straight to paediatrics at Wythenshawe; second one today with an out of hours walk in at Trafford General who saw her quickly and sympathetically and are now sending her fir a chest xray. If I was absolutely searching for a complaint, it's very difficult to find a parking space at Wythenshawe. But that's absolutely the worst I can say about the NHS from personal experience this year.
Most hospitals are terribly sited. You have to drive to get there (the buses? Lol, forget it) and when you do you cannot park.
I've used taxis so many times.
My GP doesn't have any bike racks. When I mentioned this to the doctor he was incredulous - couldn't even imagine someone cycling to a medical appointment and told me isn't wasn't worth the investment.
Sums up everything that's wrong with the NHS.
At my GP the patients are almost all either mothers with kids, sick poor or oldies. Not likely to be many cyclists among them.
If you are well enough to cycle for an emergency gp appointment then you are to well to need one
That is just nonsense. If it were an emergency you wouldn't be going to the GP anyway. For all my GP appointments (except when I had broken legs) I could have cycled. Let's list a few:
Umpteen vaccines (not with GP but still same location) Having stitches out (again not with GP, but at surgery) Paralysed vocal cord (treated as a real emergency because of suspicion of cancer, but didn't impact my ability to get about) Treatment for trigger finger, again didn't stop me riding a bike.
Woke alert. Red Arrows flying on “sustainable biofuel”. Doing their bit for Net Zero…
Until they're all in gliders someone won't rest. Probably.
If it were good enough for ar brave lads..
Not great for aerobatics though.
There is a fatal flaw in the original logic (yes I know it was a joke but I couldn't resist the pedantry). The gliders don't get into the air by magic. An engine is still needed somewhere in the operation whether that be a tug or a winch launch.
Someone just made an interesting point on Any Answers referring to the honesty of politicians...
The Tory on the Panel said it was shocking that Labour were going to spent as much on Leeds station as they were going to spend on the entire Welsh railway system.
He checked it out and discovered that more people use Leeds station than use the Welsh railway system
The question is whether you should invest in places where people are already using them, or where they are not. See the endless focus on London for infrastructure projects.
It doesn't feel altogether relevant how many people pass through Leeds Station. It is a single station and one would expect the money spent on it to be less than that spent on a system with a lot of stations and track.
Comments
In reality all those cars are circling around and trying to find somewhere to park or double parking.
Just provide a large multi-storey and get over it.
Saddam WAS co-operating with the weapons inspectors. There was little to no threat to the west. Blair wanted in on the war and found a way.
What annoys me is the combination of trying to reduce parking, and *reduced* public transport and accessibility.
For example, a significant proportion of the congestion on the Edinburgh bypass is caused by people driving to the retail parks at Fort Kinnaird and Hermiston Gait. Indeed, most of the road congestion here is caused by people going to and from the Lothians, not actually driving around the city.
Causes huge issues for people trying to get to work or move goods around. This stuff matters, I'm afraid. There's a real science to it.
He was not. Absolutely not. Read that article, and then pick up a copy of https://www.amazon.co.uk/Saddams-Secrets-Tim-Trevan/dp/000653113X and tell me that he was cooperating.
I agree with you about the sexed-up dossier.
The paucity of parking at hospitals is deliberate bollocks.
It's regressive in it makes life easier for richer patients, while stimulating congestion and moving people away from healthier ways of getting around.
I accept that there can be issues around the local roads, but when you have hospitals actively reducing the number of parking spots, that is not because congestion.
The council in Clarkson's case have probably been portrayed a bit unfairly, but are also rather short sighted. Why not try to and cash in on the back of the success of Diddly Squat? Its bringing people to the area, have other things to do. You get the impression that too many of them love there idyllic country village lives and don't want any change.
I can remember having to drop my mother off for one appointment next to the door, seeing her into reception and having immediately to remove my car to a legal space 300 yards from where I dropped her off. When I can back she had been ushered to God knows where, trying to find her in a busy hospital over 80 and rather confused, not at all easy. Car parking is essential.
I think it's our car dependency that has driven this feeling, ultimately. The deep frustration of trying to get to an office in Livingstone for Dunfermline by train. Interminable hours stuck on the bypass in our car. The vulnerability of trying to cycle to something like the RIE. The lack of buses and trains where I grew up, which made getting into Inverness or Aberdeen so difficult.
But also...going straight through red lights at top speed without looking is the mentality of a fucking lunatic.
(I speak from personal experience)
Some new hospitals even have them.
I would have thought your parents would have been eligible for patient transport, with a door to door service. This has its own problems, however, with patients typically collected and returned hours before/after appointments, turning almost any appointment into an all-day event.
Health economic analyses usually just look at healthcare costs and not the time and inconvenience experienced by patients. We need more cost consequence analyses, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cost-consequence-analysis-health-economic-studies , rather than other approaches.
I guess the other thing to consider is what would happen if everyone drove to the hospital? Only 20% of all trips in Edinburgh are by car, only 30% of commutes. Can you imagine how bad the parking situation would be if it weren't for those of us walking, cycling or taking the bus?
I see them around from time to time, so I assume some people are using them.
Ordinary buses here also have ways that people in wheelchairs can use them. I often see them on my bus rides. (The front entrances have little platforms that lower down, and then can lift the chair. In the front of the bus, there are areas in which the wheelchairs can be strapped into place.
(As far as I know, the Americans with Disabilities Act has been, on the whole, a success. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990 )
The real losers in this are bus users - they tend to be the poorest, and often represent older people with disabilities which mean they can't drive. The lack of services mean they lose their indepdence and can't make it to hospital without someone driving them there,
By contrast I can get to the hospital in 20 minutes on my scooter - a car would be 5-10 minutes slower. So, 40-60 minutes vs up to 5 hours for a round trip. Nobody sane is using public transport for that journey if they have any other option, not even taking into account how much more physically draining it would be for people who are sick or elderly.
Question 2: Is a wider regional war between Iran and Saudi Arabia unavoidable?
That doesn't seem optimal for containing the conflict
IMHO woke has more real meaing, though not much, than my examples.
A problem occurs when some people see something as not being racist, whilst other see it as racist.
A majority of Britons express little to no confidence in the British judicial system for the first time since YouGov began asking the question in 2019
A lot/fair amount of confidence: 40% (-3 from 14-16 Dec 2024)
Not very much confidence/none: 53% (+4)"
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1932737179219792173
Member of the Iranian Parliament to Reuters: Tehran is seriously considering closing the Strait of Hormuz
Just off to check the water supply to the nuclear bomb shelter at the end of the garden.
"Measuring the Mandela effect: How many Britons share false memories?
Half of Britons remember Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy emerging wet-shirted from a lake, even though it never happened"
https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/52344-measuring-the-mandela-effect-how-many-britons-share-false-memories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hasKmDr1yrA
@histoftech.bsky.social
“At least 3 people have been shot at the homes of Democratic lawmakers in Brooklyn Park and Champlin in Minnesota, according to law enforcement sources. The suspect is believed to be impersonating a police officer and is still at large. The first shooting happened just after 2 a.m. on Saturday”
https://bsky.app/profile/histoftech.bsky.social/post/3lrkvlja4n22e
“He fled the scene in a dark-colored SUV with a push-bumper, a spotlight on the drivers’ side, and red-and-blue flashing lights mounted on both the dash and rear window—equipment resembling an unmarked squad vehicle.”
And then in 2005 Russel T Davies shot the scenes for real... Bigger budget.
About the only time it wasn't, was during the pandemic.
Why did UK crisp packets swap colours?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLC0eeDalBI
There are disasters. But the normal experience is usually broadly positive. Twas always the case.
Parking coukd be considerably better however.
Two things shone out. Firstly Reform were humiliated. Claire Fox was all but booed and deservedly so. She was not only terrible but she unleashed the ridicule on Farage who all but seems to have supported the reintroduction of chimney sweeps.
But the big take-away was the excellence of Torsten Bell. It could be the weakness of the rest of the panel but he's extremely articulate and gave out the vibe of a sensitive human being
One lesson of Ukraine & Iran is that air power sets the conditions in which any war unfolds. Ukr succeeded in frustrating Russia's much larger air force, both because of its air-defence dispersal in the first day of war & Ru air force weaknesses. Iran's air-defences collapsed.
https://x.com/shashj/status/1933862841620082876
Steve Rosenberg"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6aRHRZUcv0
Crosses Torsten Bell off list of potential future PMs based on Rogers tipping history....
Q2: Unlikely so long as Israel is involved.
I'd therefore class A&E trips to very different to outpatient visits, and especially scheduled visits. But it must be difficult for hospitals to separate parking for both (even if the payments are different - I think people visiting A&E at Addenbrokes get free parking, but not outpatients?)
https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1933652529234989057
If they cared about the ideology of moving people onto different transport methods they'd spend money on encouraging the alternatives. Looks to me more like a convenient way to cut costs.
Not as cringe as the Salmond Stone, though:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-52748722
The celebrated documentarian’s five-part series charts the decline of Britain’s democracy with a witty, kaleidoscopic selection of archive footage. It begins, of course, with Margaret Thatcher
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jun/14/shifty-review-adam-curtis-new-show-bbc-iplayer
NEW THREAD
https://x.com/Michael_J_Black/status/1933880755752480915
Wayve AI headquartered in the UK.
I'm not so sure about Roger the cabin boy...........
By contrast, I’ve experienced very poor care on the wards, for a number of members of my family, over the years.
Not because the doctors and nurses were evil or stupid - they are mired in a system that doesn’t give them the information they need to do the job. A rotating cast of medical staff, who all prod the computer, to try and find out what is know so far. Each department seems to be several light years away from the others, so dieticians, physios etc are rumours. Joined up care seems a distant dream.
It is a hideously unproductive system. And must be terrible to work in, if you give a shit.
Not great for aerobatics though.
The Tory on the Panel said it was shocking that Labour were going to spent as much on Leeds station as they were going to spend on the entire Welsh railway system.
He checked it out and discovered that more people use Leeds station than use the Welsh railway system
Umpteen vaccines (not with GP but still same location)
Having stitches out (again not with GP, but at surgery)
Paralysed vocal cord (treated as a real emergency because of suspicion of cancer, but didn't impact my ability to get about)
Treatment for trigger finger, again didn't stop me riding a bike.
Shall I carry on?