Stealth taxes are often hard to identify but over here in little ol Sandwell our hospital trust have just come up with a beauty. I suppose being a regular visitor I am more aware than most of the costs involved with being sick. Some four years ago they started to charge disabled people to park at the hospital an action which caused great resentment and objection. Like many other groups I fought against it but the trust was not for bending. They introduced a token scheme whereby you can buy ten tokens for £10 which means that for any token you can park for as long as you like for each visit. This scheme as saved me a lot of money over the period of my illness. Recently the hospital trust announced increases to car parking charges. Not 1% not 2% but twenty% increases on all parking charges except over ten hours. The new prices apply to the token scheme as well so now we will only get 8 visits to the hospital for our ten quid. This is of course an absolute scandal particularly as in some parts of UK charges have been abandoned. Gordon promised to do something about this anomaly but nothing happened in Sandwell.
The other piece of news which is also regrettable this week is MPs getting 1% increase when many more low paid workers are being asked to take a pay freeze. I sincerely hope our MP turns this pay increase down because it is clearly a vote looser. They don’t seem to learn constituents first.
Sandwell Valley
About Me
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- Bob the Black Country Brummie
- West Bromwich, Sandwell, United Kingdom
- Born in Birmingham and lived in West Bromwich for most of my life. The Black Country Brummie tag came from a local poetry group when I read some of my poetry written in Black Country but of course resited with a brummie accent.
3 comments:
Bob, you could always Cllr. John Edward's Health Scrutiny Panel to ask the hospital to justify the increase. They've made them do that before.
Worth a try.
Bob
Bob, that's a very good idea and well worth a try. Until our clinic is in the bag I don't have time or energy to take on another campaign. I just hope someone does.
Not like me I know, but I agree with Cllr Piper.While you are at it ask him to justify a 1 per cent increase in council tax taken that single status should have reduced the wages bill to off set the increase in fuel that gordon refused to cap. Or you could ask the opposition to ask these questions for you-or will that be the same thing in May??teehee.
Back to the P.C.T. is it car parking fees that are paying for the call center in MILTON KEENES????
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