Royal Oldham Hospital parking scandal exposed by FOI

A Freedom of Information (FOI) response has exposed serious failures in the parking system at Royal Oldham Hospital, raising urgent concerns about fairness, safety and transparency and reinforcing calls for a multi-storey car park and major reform.

The FOI request was submitted on December 12, 2025, by a volunteer from Our Campaigns to obtain legally verified data after years of complaints from patients and NHS staff. 

The FOI response received on Friday, January 30, 2026, revealed that in 2024 alone, Royal Oldham Hospital issued: 

● 4,040 parking fines 

● 2,133 warning notices 

● 1,204 appeals received, of which 358 were upheld 

This means almost one in three people who appealed had their fine cancelled, indicating widespread unfair or incorrect ticketing. 

Yet the hospital Trust claims it received “no complaints” about lack of spaces or parking fines. 

Dr Zahid Chauhan OBE, who spearheaded the campaign for fair parking, said “When over 4,000 people are fined in one year and more than 350 of those fines are later cancelled; it is impossible to claim there are no parking problems.  

“This FOI exposes a system that is trapping patients, visitors and staff - not supporting them.” 

The FOI response also exposes a structural failure in staff parking. Royal Oldham Hospital has issued 3,000 active staff parking permits, yet it has only 1,277 staff parking spaces available. 

This means more than 1,700 NHS staff are guaranteed not to find a space when they go to work, even though they have been issued a permit. The Trust says there is “no waiting list” for staff parking, but the FOI proves the waiting list has simply been hidden inside the permit system.  

Staff are being sold permits for parking that do not exist. This explains why staff are being fined, forced to park off-site, or left walking long distances late at night after long shifts. 

Despite being a busy acute hospital, the FOI confirms: 

● Zero A&E priority bays 

● Zero maternity bays 

● No emergency-use bays 

● No risk assessments for staff safety in car parks at night or in low-visibility conditions 

At the same time, the Trust incident data for 2025 which was provided with the FOI response, shows 44 safety and security incidents relating to Trust car parks including theft of vehicles, criminal damage, lone worker safety issues, verbal and physical abuse and slip, trip and fall injuries. 

“Staff are being asked to walk through unsafe, poorly monitored car parks at night, yet the Trust admits it has carried out no risk assessment. That is unacceptable,” said Dr Chauhan. 

The FOI also revealed that Royal Oldham Hospital has: 

● 1,277 staff spaces (with 240 of these rented off-site at Oldham Athletic on weekdays) 

● Only 336 patient and visitor spaces 

● Just 59 disabled bays for patients and visitors 

There are no occupancy records, but the Trust admits that car parks are routinely full between 9am and 4pm on weekdays, exactly when clinics, scans and ward visits are at their highest. 

The FOI confirms that Royal Oldham Hospital utilises a parking management company to run key parts of its parking operation, including enforcement staff, signage, permit systems, payment processing and ticketing systems. 

These services are provided by Open Parking, with payment machines maintained by IPS Group and Metric Group. In 2024, the Trust paid £138,147 to these parking management and equipment providers. 

The Trust’s Freedom of Information response states that it cannot break down revenue from parking charges and penalty notices by hospital site or by source (staff, patients or visitors), and reports that income from parking charges and penalties across all four hospitals was £71,040 in 2024. 

However, Parliamentary data provided by Jim McMahon OBE MP paints a far wider picture. 

In a letter dated January 7, 2026, to Our Campaigns, the MP confirmed that Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust generated £5.9 million in total parking income last year, including over £3.4 million from patients, visitors and staff. 

Within that, Royal Oldham Hospital alone generated around £838,000 from staff, patient and visitor parking in 2024/25. 

Taken together, these figures show that while the Trust cannot provide a clear breakdown in its FOI response, hundreds of thousands of pounds are being taken from people using Royal Oldham Hospital to park while the system itself remains overcrowded, unsafe and poorly planned. 

Despite recording dozens of incidents in its car parks, the Trust admits it has carried out no formal risk assessments relating to staff safety when accessing car parks during night shifts or in low-visibility areas. 

Our Campaigns is calling for an immediate independent safety risk assessment of all Royal Oldham Hospital parking areas, including lighting, CCTV coverage, walking distances, late-night access routes and lone-worker safety. 

Eddy Hardaker, Chair of the Royal Oldham Hospital Parking Campaign, said “This FOI was submitted by one of our volunteers because people were fed up with being told their experiences weren’t real. The Trust’s own data now proves what patients and staff have been saying for years, the system is overcrowded, oversold and unsafe. When a hospital admits it has done no risk assessment but still issues thousands of fines, something has gone wrong.” 

In his letter, Jim McMahon OBE MP confirmed that Government capital funding is available for hospital parking, and that the Northern Care Alliance acknowledges the need for standardisation and reform.  

Parking charges and payment machines are currently under review, yet the FOI response confirms that there are no plans for a multi-storey car park, no expansion strategy, and no real-time occupancy systems, even though demand already exceeds supply. 

Our Campaigns is calling for: 

1. An urgent working group: Oldham Council and Northern Care Alliance NHS 

Foundation Trust to immediately set up a joint working group to find practical parking 

solutions, as previously agreed in the full council motion brought by Cllr Dr Zahid 

Chauhan on November 12, 2025. 

2. An immediate independent safety risk assessment of all Royal Oldham Hospital 

parking areas - which includes staff safety when accessing car parks during night 

shifts or in low-visibility areas. 

3. Immediate protection for A&E patients, disabled visitors and night-shift staff 

4. A multi-storey car park. 

5. An end to parking surpluses made from NHS patients and workers. 

“You cannot run a hospital like a car-park business. Parking should support care - not exploit it.” 

To find out more about the campaign and sign the petition to fix parking at Royal Oldham Hospital visit the Our Campaigns website: www.ourcampaigns.co.uk