Sainsbury’s Scrooges cancel park and ride service to Arrowe Park hospital over Christmas

Dec 23 2009 by Jayne Boothroyd, Birkenhead News

Arrowe Park hospital (200) (copy)

SCROOGE-LIKE supermarket bosses have been slammed after Arrowe Park hospital’s park and ride bus service was cancelled over Christmas.

The service, which takes members of the public from the car park at Sainsbury’s in Upton to the hospital, has been put on hold because Sainsbury’s in Upton wants to use all available spaces for Christmas shoppers.

The service provides a 17 seater mini bus, which runs at 10-minute intervals from Monday to Thursday.

It finished on December 14 and will start again on January 4.

Joanne Lunt from Greasby was visiting her aunt with an elderly relative last week and says she was shocked to find there was no park and ride service.

She said: “We initially went to the hospital but could not find any spaces in the free car park so as we were in good time we decided to drive to Sainsbury's and get the park and ride.

“When we saw the park and ride was not running, we returned to Arrowe Park and after dropping my relative off I went into the pay car park.

“There were no spaces and dozens of cars going round in circles in the vain hope one might just become available. After about ten minutes I gave up but I still had to pay £2 even though there were no spaces.