STAFF at three Kent hospitals are in mutinous mood after being told they face having to pay for parking at work. Some are said to be threatening to quit their jobs if the changes are forced through.

A petition being circulated at the hospital calling for the proposals to be abandoned is understood to have the support of hundreds of staff.

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust is reviewing parking arrangements at its hospital sites at Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells and Pembury.

A staff working group will meet for the first time next month to look at the current arrangements.

Part of its work will be to review staff car parking charges to help fund parking improvements staff have asked for.

The trust’s estimated 4,500 staff currently pay a one-off £15 permit for using designated spaces but that could increase to anything between £50 and £100 per year.

Despite assurances that money raised will be spent on parking improvments, including increased CCTV coverage and lighting, many staff are fuming.

The petition, which calls on trust chief executive Rose Gibb to scrap the proposals, reports staff fears that they will be charged £200 per year. This figure has been dismissed as speculative by a trust spokesman.

A member of nursing staff at Maidstone Hospital, who asked not to be named, described the mood as mutinous.

She said: “Many of my colleagues are furious about this and have signed the petition. Some have said they will leave if they are forced to pay any increase.

“Finding a parking space, particularly for those coming on shift during the day can be a nightmare. At the moment we have designated spaces with about 60 in the front of the hospital but these are often used by the public.”

“If we can’t park there we have to go to spaces at the back of the hospital but no-one wants to walk alone to their cars, especially if they’re left there at night.”

A spokesman for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said the proposals came out of meetings with staff and would improve parking for staff but would also benefit visitors and patients.

He said: “Any increase to car parking charges that the staff working group comes up will have to be realistic and reflect the differences in salaries so that people who earn the least pay less.

“By structuring any increase in parking charges staff on the lowest pay scales could be looking at paying something like over £1 a week.

“But there is still a long way to go before anything is proposed by the staff working group and all staff will be consulted to make sure any increase is fair for all.”