A 90-YEAR-OLD pensioner wants Roundstone Surgery to warn people when doctors are running late after he was fined for being parked in their car park for too long waiting for an appointment.

Ron Welsh visited the Trowbridge doctor’s surgery on a routine visit but was left stunned a month later when he received a £100 parking fine – stating that he had exceeded the hour time limit without validating his car.

“I didn’t know you could book your car in and I have since learnt that this is what you have to do if you’re going to be over an hour but how are you supposed to know that?

“Being fined £100 for just a few minutes over an hour is such a lot of money, especially for someone at my age,” Mr Welsh, of Furlong Gardens said.

“I paid it quickly because that was the easiest thing and you have to pay more money if you don’t pay it off before a certain time. We did enquire to see if you could protest but I was told that I could end up paying more than £100 and it would take a long time to process.”

Roundstone Surgery passed over responsibility of its car park to private firm Creative Parking Solutions Ltd in a bid to deter people from using it if they were visiting the town centre.

But Mr Welsh, who is registered disabled, said he believes more signage should be put up in the waiting room, especially for the older generation who might not be familiar with the surgery’s tablet system.

He added: “I thought that it is not my problem to get me out of there before the hour is up, it is the doctors’.

“My daughter rang and asked the doctors why they had sent me the notice and all they said is that it was nothing to do with them and I should deal with the private company.

“They weren’t interested after that.

“With my pension, £100 is quite a blow because money doesn’t go very far these days and things seem to go up all the time.”

Suzanne Petty, administration manager at Roundstone said she is going to look into the matter further for Mr Welsh as the cameras were never intended to penalise patients using the car park legitimately.

She added: “We do sometimes run late and that is why we have various signage up there that says to validate your parking and there are signs on the notice boards.”