If intu Watford attempted to implement the same parking fees as Watford General Hospital it would go out of business in weeks.

Imagine how many shoppers would be returning if they had to pay a minimum of £4 to park at the shopping centre? It would be commercial suicide.

The difference is that shopping centres have to attract customers through their doors whereas hospitals enjoy a more secure market when it comes to footfall.

Its visitors generally come because they or someone they care about is in acute pain or needing treatment for chronic or potentially fatal ailments.

As such, hospitals can charge what they want and visitors have to lump it.

Hence the announcement Watford General Hospital is lowering its starting charge to £2 for an hour has to be welcomed.

The changes come after a few years of political pressure on the trust to change its parking regime.

In 2011 the hospital trust’s associate director of infrastructure, Eric Fehily, was grilled by councillors over the high fees. His plaintive defence of the charges was that they did not even cover the costs managing the car parks.

He said the fees brought in around £900,000 and the cost of managing the car parks came closer to £1 million.

At the time, he said the trust also had to find around £500,000 for repairs and maintenance for car parks at the three sites.

Last year, Watford Borough Concil’s overview and scrutiny committee recommended the trust bring in a cheaper £2.50 charge for two hours, but the recommendation was rebuffed as the trust said it could not change its charging scheme until 2015 due to its contract with the parking management company CP Plus.

That appeared to kick the issue into the long grass – until earlier this year, when the trust announced plans to revoke blue badge holders exemption from the charges.

This provoked a vociferous backlash and reignited political anger over the fees.

When the trust’s new chief executive, Samantha Jones, took up the job in February she suspended the introduction of charges for blue badge holders and instigated a listening exercise.

This week’s announcement about the charging scheme comes off the back of that consultation and has resulted in elected mayor Dorothy Thornhill lauding Ms Jones for being prepared to listen and take action.

And Ms Jones’s approach is a refreshing change from the trust’s previous obdurate stance over its charges.

The lower starting fee is indeed welcome as asking patients and visitors to cough up a starting fee of £4 was always both exorbitant and unfair.

However, the new charging scheme is in effect an overall rise in the cost of parking at the hospital as medium and long term fees are going up.

The fact is next month parking will become more expensive for the vast majority people visiting Watford General, not less.

When the trust starts renegotiating its new parking contract next year, it really needs to take another look at its parking fees. They are still too high and still heading in the wrong direction.

Most of those who pull up at Watford General have far more important things to worry about than parking. Their distress and helplessness should not be used an opportunity to milk them for exorbitant parking fees.

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here