MIDWEEK has launched its campaign to alleviate the car parking problems at Wycombe Hospital, a situation I find both amusing and perplexing.

After all I thought planning applications were granted and refused on the back of comprehensive proposals that take into account potential parking and access complications. Somehow it appears the situation at Wycombe Hospital was overlooked.

Only last month I openly criticised the hospital after revelations that patients had to pay to park. Now lazy students are being blamed by a reader for a shortage of spaces, which in my opinion is a facade.

According to a hospital spokesman, revenue generated by the pay-and-display system is in excess of £300,000 a year. On that basis, why should they care who parks there so long as the money is accumulated?

Equally baffling is how bosses managed to justify ten per cent of the car park's 239 spaces as 20 minute wait bays because it takes at least three hours just to get processed at Accident and Emergency.

What I would like to know is if the hospital chief executive or managing director have to pay to park their motors? Probably not.

Meanwhile, Wycombe District Council hopes to alleviate over-crowding in the car park with the introduction of a free shuttle bus service, ferrying staff from outside the Filmworks cinema in Cressex to the hospital.

Now if this was to take off, surely it is a prime example of creating another problem out of an existing problem. Before long we would have complaints from cinema goers that there was no where to park.

As for the students, well they're students. I have some great stories to tell from my university days, trying to avoid paying for all sorts, after all, students are financially crippled by this Government before they even start foraging for a living, so why not take a few liberties.

A particular favourite scam of a friend of mine was getting a whole bag of fresh fruit or veg for the price of a single carrot. He found it easy, by just weighing the one carrot, attaching the barcode, and then filling the bag. All he had to do then was ensure he queued at a check-out manned by a particularly uninterested student.

My motto throughout life has always been "nothing in life is free." I have the utmost sympathy with students and find it difficult to blame them for parking in a hospital car park because it's cheaper.

If other town car parks were cheap, or even free in some cases, the problem would be eradicated immediately.