Published: Thursday, 18th June, 2009 11:00am

Parking snarl-up 'is beyond a joke'

by Fiona Howard

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Enhanced health services at Helensburgh"s Victoria Infirmary are making their neighbours sick . . .

Or, rather, the parking habits of people working and visiting the facilities are.

Residents of Mossend Place live directly opposite the gate to the Victoria Infirmary and Jeanie Deans unit and the recent development of the site as a fully-integrated care unit with outpatients clinics as well has greatly increased the number of people working on site and visiting.

This means the parking facilities on the site are not able to cope with the additional cars, and staff and sometimes patients have been parking in spaces allocated for residents, as well as along both sides of East King Street.

One resident, Edward Mathieson, said: 'It is getting a bit beyond the joke now.

'Residents can"t park outside their own homes and the road is being blocked so that the buses are having difficulty getting through and can"t stop without completely blocking the road.

'It is so bad sometimes that people who do get off the bus can"t see to cross the road safely. I was nearly knocked down the other day.

'They should have thought of the parking situation when they decided to put all the new services into the Victoria.

'This has been going on for a couple of months now and the residents are all a bit fed up with it.'

Anne Helstrip, Helensburgh and Lomond Locality Manager for Argyll and Bute CHP, said: 'NHS Highland encourages our staff to use public transport to get to work if it is possible and appropriate.

'However, if they do come to work by car they are asked to park without causing obstruction to other road users or inconvenience to our neighbours and I will reiterate this message again to our staff.'