Warning on hospital parking after fire engine blocked

An urgent appeal has been made on parking at Craigavon Area Hospital after a fire engine's path was blocked by parked cars.
Craigavon Area Hospital has issued an urgent appeal on parking. INPT07Craigavon Area Hospital has issued an urgent appeal on parking. INPT07
Craigavon Area Hospital has issued an urgent appeal on parking. INPT07

The incident took place on Friday afternoon after the fire alarm went off at the hospital.

A spokesperson for the Southern Health and Social Care Trust said that luckily, on this occasion, it was a false alarm.

But she said that had it been a real fire, “the fire appliance could not get close enough to the main building because there were three cars parked in the emergency vehicle access”.

She said, “Car parking is a constant challenge for us as demand for our services continually increases and we are always looking for ways of improving traffic flow.

“There has been a lot of disruption around the Craigavon site over the past few months and this will continue until the completion of our new paediatric centre.

“There are just over 2,000 car parking places on the Craigavon site but only 300 of these are paid places located closest to the hospital entrance and there will be an extra 210 car parking spaces in the coming weeks.”

The spokesperson added, “We greatly appreciate the co-operation of everyone using the site while we make these improvements. To improve traffic flow and for everyone’s safety, for example in the case of a fire or other emergency, we appeal to people to use consideration when they are parking.

“In particular not to park on yellow lines or zones for emergency vehicles, not to obstruct drop off points close to hospital entrances, and to leave disabled spaces for blue badge holders only.”

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